White  Hyacinths 


Bv  f'.lbnrt  Hubbard 


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ideals  /^r  tke  1 
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life  by  livi 


idea*  atvd 
txvelx, 


Copyright  1907 

by 
ELBERT  HUBBARD 


If  I  had  but  two  loaves  of  bread  I 
would  sell  one  of  them  and  buy 
White  Hyacinths  to  feed  my  soul. 


435382 


WHITE  HYACINTHS 

COMMON  question  this, 
"  Would  you  care  to  live 
your  life  over  again  ?"  &&*> 
Not  only  is  it  a  common 
question,  but  a  foolish  one, 
since  we  were  sent  into  life 
without  our  permission,  & 
are  being  sent  out  of  it  against  our  will,  and 
the  option  of  a  return  ticket  is  not  ours  &&> 
But  if  urged  to  reply  I  would  say  with  Ben 
jamin  Franklin,  "Yes,  provided,  of  course, 
that  you  allow  me  the  author's  privilege  of 
correcting  the  second  edition. "  If,  however, 
this  is  denied,  I  will  still  say,  "Yes,"  and 
say  it  so  quickly  it  will  give  you  vertigo  ^. 
In  reading  the  Journal  of  John  Wesley  the 
other  day,  I  ran  across  this  item  written  in 
the  author's  eighty-fifth  year,  "In  all  of  my 
life  I  have  never  had  a  period  of  depression 
nor  unhappiness  that  lasted  more  than  half 
an  hour."  I  can  truthfully  say  the  same. 
One  thing  even  Omnipotence  cannot  do, 
and  that  is  to  make  that  which  once  occurred 
never  to  have  been.  THE  PAST  IS  MINE 

9 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


I  HAT  does  life  mean  to  me? 
Everything!  Because  I  have 
everything  with  which  to 
enjoy  life. 

I  own   a  beautiful  home, 
well  furnished,  and  this  & 
home  is  not  decorated  with 
a  mortgage. 

I  have  youth — I  am  only  fifty — and  as  in 
degree  the  public  is  willing  to  lend  me  its 
large  furry  ear,  I  have  prospects. 
I  have  a  library  of  five  thousand  volumes  to 
read;  and  besides,  I  have  a  little  case  of  a 
hundred  books  to  love,  bound  in  full  levant, 
hand-tooled  r€*fc 

I  have  four  paid-up  Life  Insurance  Policies 
in  standard  companies;  a  little  balance  in 
the  Savings  Bank;  I  owe  no  man,  and  my 
income  is  ample  for  all  my  wants. 
Then  besides  I  have  a  saddle-horse  with 
a  pedigree  like  unto  that  of  a  Daughter 
of  the  Revolution;  a  Howard  watch,  and 
a  fur-lined  overcoat  rf^>  So  there  now, 

WHY  SHOULD  N'T  I  ENJOY  LIFE? 
10 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


ANTICIPATE  your  an 
swer,  which  is,  that  a  man 
may  have  all  of  these  things 
enumerated  and  also  have 
indigestion  and  chronic  fif* 
Bright' s  disease,  so  that  the 
digger  in  the  ditch,  than  he, 
is  happier  far.  Your  point  is  well  taken,  and 
so  I  will  gently  explain  that  if  I  have  any 
aches  or  pains  I  am  not  aware  of  them  r&i* 
I  have  never  used  tobacco,  nor  spirituous 
liquors,  nor  have  I  contracted  the  chloral, 
cocaine,  bromide  or  morphine  habit,  never 
having  invested  a  dollar  in  medicine,  pa 
tented,  proprietary,  nor  prescribed.  In  fact 
I  have  never  had  occasion  to  consult  a  phy 
sician.  I  have  good  eyesight,  sound  teeth,  a 
perfect  digestion,  and  God  grants  to  me  His 
great  gift  of  sleep.  C£  And  again  you  say,  very 
well,  but  you  yourself  have  said, ' '  Expression 
is  necessary  to  life/'  and  that  the  man  who 
has  everything  is  to  be  pitied,  since  he  has 
nothing  to  work  for,  and  that  to  have  every 
thing  is  to  lose  all,  for  life  lies  in  the  struggle. 


11 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


|LL  the  points  are  well  made. 
But  I  have  work  to  do — 
compelling  work  —  that  I 
cannot  delegate  to  others. 
$$>  This  prevents  incipient 
smugosity  &  introspection. 
For  more  than  twelve  years 
I  have  written  the  copy  for  two  monthly 
magazines  iK  During  that  time  no  issue  of 
either  magazine  has  been  skipped.  The  com 
bined  paid-in-advance  circulation  of  these 
periodicals  is  over  two  hundred  thousand 
copies  each  issue,  giving  me  an  audience, 
counting  at  the  conservative  rate  of  three 
readers  to  a  magazine,  of  over  half  a  million 
souls  ,&&» 

Here  is  a  responsibility  that  may  well  sober 
any  man,  and  which  would  subdue  him, 
actually,  if  he  stopped  to  contemplate  it  >• 
The  success  of  Blondin  in  crossing  Niagara 
Gorge  on  a  wire,  with  a  man  on  his  back, 
hinged  on  his  not  stopping  to  think  it  over. 
CJ  When  I  write  I  never  consider  what  will 

be  done  with  the  matter,  how  it  will  be 
12 


WHIT T  H  S 

liked,  and  who  will  read  it.  I  just  write  for 
myself  V£  And  the  most  captious,  relentless 
critic  I  have  is  myself.  When  I  write  well, 
as  I  occasionally  do,  I  am  filled  with  a  rap 
turous,  intoxicating  joy.  No  pleasure  in  life 
compares  with  the  joy  of  creation — catching 
in  the  Cadmean  mesh  a  new  thought — put 
ting  salt  on  the  tail  of  an  idea.  And  a  certain 
critic  has  said  that  I  can  catch  more  ideas 
with  less  salt  than  any  man  in  America  &®> 
I  am  not  sure  whether  the  man  was  speak 
ing  ironically  or  in  compliment,  but  since 
the  remark  has  been  bruited  abroad,  it  has 
struck  me  as  being  fairly  good,  and  so  I  here 
repeat  it,  for  I  am  making  no  special  attempt 
in  this  article  and  elsewhere,  to  conceal  the 
fact  that  I  am  still  on  earth. 
One  book  I  wrote  has  attained  a  sale  of  over 
a  hundred  thousand  copies,  although  selling 
at  the  unpopular  price  of  two  dollars  a  vol 
ume.  And  one  article  I  wrote  and  published 
in  one  of  the  magazines,  to  which  I  have 
just  referred,  has  been  translated  into  eleven 
languages  &  been  reprinted  over  twenty-four 

13 


WHITE     HYACINTH; 

million  times,  attaining  a  wider  circulation, 

I  believe,  than  any  article  or  book  has  ever 

attained  in  the  same  length  of  time. 

In  saying  these  things  I  fully  realize  that  no 

man  is  ever  in  such  danger  of  being 

elected   an    honorary   member 

of  the  Ananias  Club  as 

he    who    states   the 

simple    truth 


14 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


N  order  to  write  well  you 
require  respite  and  rest  in 
change.  Ideas  come  to  one 
on  the  mountains,  while 
tramping  the  fields,  at  the 
wood-pile.  When  you  are 
in  the  best  condition  is  the 
time  to  do  nothing,  for  at  such  a  time,  if 
ever,  the  divine  current  surges  through  you. 
If  we  could  only  find  the  cosmic  switchboard 
when  we  want  to  think,  how  delightful  it 
would  be  to  simply  turn  on  the  current! 
But  no,  all  we  can  do  is  to  walk,  ride  horse 
back,  dig  in  the  garden,  placing  ourselves  in 
receptive  mood  and  from  the  Unknown  the 
ideas  come.  Then  to  use  them  is  a  matter  of 
the  workroom. 

And  so  to  keep  my  think-apparatus  in  good 
working  order  I  dilute  the  day  with  much 
manual  work — which  is  only  another  word 
for  play  &&*> 

Big  mental  work  is  done  in  heats.  Between 
these  heats  are  intervals  of  delightful  stu 
pidity.  To  cultivate  his  dull  moments  is  the 

15 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

mark  of  wisdom  for  every  thought-juggler 
who  aspires  to  keep  three  balls  in  the  air  at 
one  time.  In  the  course  of  each  year  I  give 
about  a  hundred  lectures. 
^^  Public  speaking,  if  carried  on  with  a 
moderation,  is  a  valuable  form  of  mental 
excitation.  Ill  health  comes  from  too  much 
excitement,  or  not  enough.  Platform  work 
keeps  your  mental  pores  open  and  tends  to 
correct  faulty  elimination  of  mental  dross. 
CJ  To  stand  before  an  audience  of  a  thousand 
people  for  two  hours  with  no  manuscript, 
and  only  your  tongue  and  brain  to  save  you 
from  the  ruin  that  may  engulf  you  any  in 
stant,  &  which  many  in  your  audience  hope 
will  engulf  you,  requires  a  goodly  modicum 
of  concentration. 

I  have  seen  the  giving  way  of  a  collar  button 
in  an  impassioned  moment,  cross-buttock 
a  Baptist  preacher.  I  am  always  prepared 
for  accidents  in  oratory,  such  say,  as  a 
harmless  necessary  cat  coming  on  the  stage 
without  her  cue.  In  public  speaking  one 
shakes  the  brush  piles  of  thought  and  starts 

16 




a  deal  more  game  than  he  runs  down  at  the 
time,  and  this  game  which  he  follows  up 
at  his  leisure,  and  the  stimulus  of  success  in 
having  stayed  the  limit,  makes  for  mental 
growth  >^&> 

But  besides  writing  and  public  speaking,  I 
have  something  to  do  with  a  semi-commu 
nistic  corporation  called  The  Roycrofters, 
employing  upwards  of  five  hundred  people. 
The  work  of  The  Roycrofters  is  divided 
into  departments  as  follows:  a  farm,  bank, 
hotel,  printing  plant,  bookbindery,  furniture 
factory  and  blacksmith  shop. 
The  workers  in  these  various  departments 
are  mostly  people  of  moderate  experience, 
and  therefore  more  or  less  superintendence 
is  demanded.  Eternal  vigilance  is  not  only 
the  price  of  liberty  but  of  success  in  business, 
and  knowing  this  I  keep  in  touch  with  all 
departments  of  the  work.  So  far,  we  have 
always  been  able  to  meet  our  pay  roll.  All 
of  the  top-notchers  in  the  Roycroft  Shops 
have  been  evolved  there,  so  it  will  be  seen 
that  we  aim  to  make  something  besides 

17 


books.  In  fact  we  have  a  brass  band,  an  art 

gallery,  a  reading  room,  a  library,  and  we 

have  lectures,  classes  or  concerts  every  night 

in  the  week.  Some  of  these  classes  I  teach, 

and  usually  I  speak  in  the  Roycroft  Chapel 

twice  a  week  on  current  topics. 

These  things  are  here  explained  to  make 

clear  the  point  that  I  have  no  time  for  ennui 

or  brooding  over  troubles  past  or  those  to 

come.  Even  this  article  is  written  on  bi- 

product  time,  on   board   a  railroad  train, 

going  to  meet  a  lecture  engagement,  seated 

with  a  strange  fat  man  who  talks  to  me, 

as  I  write,  about  the  weather,  news 

from    nowhere,    and    his    most 

wonderful  collection  of  steins. 


W  H  I  T  K      FT  Y  A  P,  T  NT  T  H  S 


LL  of  which,  I  hear  you 
say,  is  very  interesting,  but 
somewhat  irrelevant  and 
inconsequential  since  one 
may  have  all  of  the  things 
just  named,  and  also  hold 
the  just  balance  between 
activity  and  rest,  concentration  and  relaxa 
tion,  which  we  call  health,  and  yet  his  life 
be  faulty,  incomplete,  a  failure  for  lack  of 
one  thing — LOVE. 
Your  point  is  well  made. 
When  Charles  Kingsley  was  asked  to  name 
the  secret  of  his  success  he  replied,  "  I  had 
a  friend." 

If  asked  the  same  question  I  would  give 
the  same  answer. 

I  might  also  explain  that  my  friend  is  a 
woman  >^£> 

This  woman  is  my  wife,  legally  and  other 
wise  x£^» 

She  is  also  my  comrade,  my  companion, 
my  chum,  my  business  partner. 
There  has  long  been  a  suspicion  that  when 

x9 


God  said,  "I  will  make  a  helpmeet  for 
man, ' '  the  remark  was  a  subtle  bit  of  sarcasm. 
Q  However,  the  woman  of  whom  I  am 
speaking  proves  what  God  can  do  when 
He  concentrates  on  His  work. 
My  wife  is  my  helpmeet,  and  I  am  hers. 
Q  I  do  not  support  her,  rather,  she  supports 
me.  All  I  have  is  hers — not  only  do  I  trust 
her  with  my  heart,  but  with  my  pocket- 
book.  And  what  I  here  write  is  not  a  tomb 
stone  testimonial,  weighed  with  a  granitic 
sense  of  loss,  but  a  simple  tribute  of  truth 
to  a  woman  who  is  yet  on  earth  in  full 
possession  of  her  powers,  her  star  still  in 
the  ascendant. 

I  know  the  great  women  of  history.  I  know 
the  qualities  that  go  to  make  up,  not  only 
the  superior  person  but  the  one  sublimely 
great.  Humanity  is  the  raw  stock  with 
which  I  work. 

I  know  how  Sappho  loved  and  sang,  and 
Aspasia  inspired  Pericles  to  think  and  act, 
and  Cleopatra  was  wooed  by  two  Emperors 

of  Rome,  and  how  Theodora  suggested  the 
20 


Justinian  code  and  had  the  last  word  in  its 
compilation.  I  know  Madam  De  Stael,  Sarah 
Wedgwood,  George  Eliot,  Susanna  Wesley, 
Elizabeth  Barrett.  I  know  them  all,  for  I 
can  read,  and  I  have  lived,  and  I  have 
imagination. 

And  knowing  the  great  women  of  the 
world,  and  having  analyzed  their  characters 
and  characteristics,  I  still  believe  that  Alice 
Hubbard,  in  way  of  mental  reach,  sanity, 
sympathy  and  all-round  ability,  out-classes 
any  woman  of  history,  ancient  or  modern, 
mentally, 'morally  and  spiritually.  To  make 
a  better  woman  than  Alice  Hubbard  one 
would  have  to  take  the  talents  and  graces  of 
many  great  women  and  omit  their  faults.  If 
she  is  a  departure  in  some  minor  respects 
from  a  perfect  standard  it  is  probably  be 
cause  she  lives  in  a  faulty  world,  with  a 
faulty  man,  and  deals  with  faulty  folks,  a  few 
of  whom,  doubtless,  will  peruse  this  article. 


21 


r  H  s 

|I  GHT  here,  of  course  I  hear 
you  say,  but  love  is  blind, 
or  at  least  myopic,  and 
every  man  who  ever  loved, 
says  what  you  are  saying 
now.  The  nature  of  love  is 
exaggeration,  and  to  take  a 
woman  and  clothe  her  with  ideality,  this  is 
love.  Q  And  you  speak  wisely.  But  let  me 
here  explain  that  while  the  saltness  of  time 
in  my  ego  has  not  entirely  dissolved,  I  have 
reached  a  time  of  life  when  feminine  society 
is  not  an  actual  necessity.  I  am  at  an  age 
when  libertines  turn  saints,  and  rogues  be 
come  religious.  However,  I  have  never  gone 
the  pace,  and  so  I  am  neither  saint  nor 
ascetic,  and  the  eternally  feminine  is  not 
now,  and  never  was  to  me  a  consuming 
lure.  And  while  the  flush  of  impetuous 
youth,  with  its  unreasoning  genius  of  the 
genus,  is  not  mine,  I  am  not  a  victim  of 
amor  senilis,  and  never  can  be,  since  world 
problems,  not  sensations,  fill  my  dreams 
and  flood  my  hours. 


The  youth  loves  his  doxie  in  the  mass;  I 
analyze,  formulate  and  reduce  character  to 
its  constituent  parts. 

And  yet,  I  have  never  fully  analyzed  the 
mind  of  the  woman  I  love,  for  there  is 
always  and  forever  an  undissolved  residuum 
of  wit,  reason,  logic,  invention  and  com 
parison  bubbling  forth  that  makes  associa 
tion  with  her  a  continual  delight.  I  have  no 
more  sounded  the  depths  of  her  soul  than  I 
have  my  own.  What  she  will  say  and  what 
she  will  do  are  delightful  problems;  only 
this,  that  what  she  says  and  what  she  does 
will  be  regal,  right,  gracious,  kindly — tem 
pered  with  a  lenity  that  has  come  from 
suffering,  and  charged  with  a  sanity  that 
has  enjoyed,  and  which  knows  because 
through  it  plays  unvexed  the  Divine  Intel 
ligence  that  rules  the  world  and  carries  die 
planets  in  safety  on  their  'customed  way — 
this  I  know.  <(  Perhaps  the  principal  reason 
my  wife  and  I  get  along  so  well  together  is 
because  we  have  similar  ideas  as  to  what 
constitutes  wit.  She  laughs  at  all  of  my 


W  H  I  Y  A  C I  NT  H  S 

jokes,  and  I  do  as  much  for  her.  All  of  our 
quarrels  are  papier  mache,  made,  played, 
and  performed  for  the  gallery  of  our  psy 
chic  selves. 

Having  such  a  wife  as  this,  I  do  not  chase 
the  ghosts  of  dead  hopes  through  the  grave 
yard  of  my  dreams. 

I  have  succeeded  beyond  the  wildest  ambi 
tions  of  my  youth,  but  I  am  glad  to  find 
that  my  desires  outstrip  my  performances, 
and  as  fast  as  I  climb  one  hill  I  see  a  summit 
beyond.  So  I  am  not  satisfied,  nor  do  I  ever 
declare,    "Here  will  I  build   three   taber 
nacles,"  but  forever  do  I  hear  a  voice 
which  says,  "Arise  and  get  thee 
hence,  for  this  is  not  thy  rest." 


24 


WHIT-E     HYACINTHS 


HO  can  deny  that  the 
mother-heart  of  a  natural 
and  free  woman  makes  the 
controlling  impulse  of  her 
life  a  prayer  to  bless  and 
benefit,  to  minister  and 
serve!  Such  is  Alice  Hub- 
bard — a  free  woman  who  has  gained  free 
dom  by  giving  it.  But  her  charity  is  never 
maudlin.  She  has  the  courage  of  her  lack 
of  convictions,  and  decision  enough  to  with 
hold  the  dollar  when  the  cause  is  not  hers, 
and  when  to  bestow  merely  means  escape 
from  importunity  t&  To  give  people  that 
which  they 'do  not  earn  is  to  make  them 
think  less  of  themselves — and  you.  The  only 
way  to  help  people  is  to  give  them  a  chance 
to  help  themselves. 

She  is  the  only  woman  I  ever  knew  who 
realizes  as  a  vital  truth  that  the  basic  ele 
ments  for  all  human  betterments  are  econo 
mic,  not  mental  nor  spiritual.  She  knows 
that  the  benefits  of  preaching  are  problem 
atic,  and  that  the  good  the  churches  do  is 

25 


conjectural;    but   that  good  roads  are  the 
first  and  chiefest  factor  in  civilization.  She 
knows  and  advocates  what  no  college  presi 
dent  in  America  dare  advocate,  that  the 
money  we  expend  for  churches  if  invested 
in  scientific  forestry  and  good  roads  would 
make  this  world  a  paradise  enow.  She  does 
not  trouble  herself  much  about  Adam's  fall, 
but  she  does  thoroughly  respect  Macadam. 
If  she  ever  sings,  "Oh  for  the  wings  of  a 
dove/'  it  is  not  because  she  desires  them 
to  adorn  her  hat,  nor  as  a  means 
to  fly  away  and  be  at   rest. 


26 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


|S  a  school  teacher,  woman 
was  not  deemed  capable  or 
acceptable  until  about  1868. 
Woman's  entrance  into  the 
business  world  is  a  very 
modern  innovation.  It  all 
dates  since  the  Civil  War 
and  was  really  not  accepted  as  a  fact  until 
1876,  the  year  the  typewriter  appeared. 
Even  yet  the  average  man  keeps  his- wife  in 
total  ignorance  of  his  financial  affairs,  think 
ing  that  she  has  n't  the  ability  to  comprehend 
the  intricacies  of  trade. 
The  world  was  discovered  in  1492 ;  but  man 
was  not  discovered  until  1776.  Before  then 
man  was  only  a  worm  of  the  dust,  and  the 
tradition  still  lingers,  fostered  by  the  sects 
that  believe  in  the  ministry  of  fear. 
Woman  was  not  discovered  until  1876.  Her 
existence  before  then  was  not  even  suspected, 
and  the  few  men  who  had  their  suspicions 
were  considered  unsafe  —  erratic,  strange 
and  peculiar.  In  youth,  when  she  was  pink 
and  twenty  she  was  a  plaything;  when  she 

27 


W  H  I  T  K     H  Y  A  C  I  N  T  H  S 

grew  old  and  wrinkled  she  was  a  scullion 
and  a  drudge.  All  laws  were  made  by  men, 
and  in  most  states  a  woman  only  has  yet  a 
secondary  claim  on  her  child.  If  she  is  a 
married  woman  all  the  money  she  earns 
belongs  to  her  husband.  Woman's  right  to 
have  her  political  preferences  recorded  is 
still  denied.  Orthodox  churches  will  not 
listen  to  her  speak,  and  the  logic  of  William 
Penn  that,  "The  Voice  may  come  to  a 
woman  exactly  as  to  a  man  "  is  smiled  at 
indulgently  by  priests  and  preachers.  In 
English  common  law  she  is  always  a  minor. 
Q  It  does  not  require  much  reasoning  to 
see  that  as  long  as  a  woman  is  treated  as  a 
child  the  tendency  is  that  she  shall  be  one. 
Q  The  success  of  the  Bon  Marche  at  Paris, 
not  to  mention  Mary  Elizabeth,  Her  Candy, 
proves  what  woman  can  do  when  her  head 
is  not  in  a  compress,  and  her  hands  tied. 
Q  Man's  boldness  and  woman's  caution 
make  an  admirable  business  combination. 
And  in  spite  of  that  malicious  generaliza 
tion,  pictured  in  print  and  fable,  about 

28 


woman's   enterprise   being  limited  to  ex 
ploiting  the  trousers  of  peacefully  sleeping 
man,  I  believe  that  women  are  more  honor 
able  in  money  matters  than  the  male 
of  the  genus  homo.  Women  cash 
iers   do   not   play  the    races, 
harken  to   the  seductive 
ticker,  nor  cultivate 
the  poker  face. 


29 


WHITE     H  Y  A  C  I  N.T  H  S 


ILICE  HUBBARD  is  an 
economist  by  nature,  and 
her  skill  as  a  financier  is 
founded  on  absolute  hon 
esty  and  flawless  integrity. 
She  has  the  savings  bank 
habit,  and  next  to  paying 
her  debts,  gets  a  fine  tang  out  of  life  by  wise 
and  safe  investments.  She  knows  that  a  sav 
ings  bank  account  is  an  anchor  to  win '  ard, 
and  that  to  sail  fast  and  far  your  craft  must 
be  close  hauled  to  weather  squalls. 
In  manufacturing  she  studies  cost,  knowing 
better  far  than  most  business  men  that  de 
terioration  of  property  and  overhead  charges 
must  be  carefully  considered,  if  the  Referee 
in  Bankruptcy  would  be  kept  at  a  safe  dis 
tance  /?  She  is  a  methodizer  of  time  and 
effort,  and  knows  the  value  of  system,  real 
izing  the  absurdity  of  a  thirty-dollar-a-week 
man  doing  the  work  of  a  five-dollar-a-week 
boy.  She  knows  the  proportion  of  truth  to 
artistic  jealousy  in  the  melodious  discord  of 
the  anvil  chorus;  and  the  foreman  who 

30 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

opposes  all  reforms  which  he  himself  does 
not  conjure  forth  from  his  chickadee  brain, 
is  to  her  familiar.  The  employe  who  is  a 
knocker  by  nature,  who  constantly  shows 
a  tendency  to  get  on  the  greased  slide  that 
leads  to  limbo,  has  her  pity,  and  she  by 
many  gentle  and  diplomatic  ways  tries  to 
show  him  the  danger  of  his  position. 
With  John  Ruskin  she  says,  "  It 's  nothing 
to  give  pension  and  cottage  to  the  widow 
who  has  lost  her  son ;  it  is  nothing  to  give 
food  and  medicine  to  the  workman  who 
has  broken  his  arm,  or  the  decrepit  woman 
wasting  in  sickness.  But  it  is  something  to 
use  your  time  and  strength  to  war  with 
the  waywardness  and  thoughtlessness  of 
mankind ;  to  keep  erring  workmen  in  your 
service  till  you  have  made  him  an  un 
erring  one,  and  to  direct  your  fellow- 
merchant  to  the  opportunity  which  his 
judgment  would  otherwise  have  lost." 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


N  my  wife's  mind  I  see  my 
thoughts  enlarged  and  re 
flected,  just  as  in  a  telescope 
we  behold  the  stars.  She  is 
the  magic  mirror  in  which 
I  see  the  divine.  Her  mind 
acts  on  mine,  and  mine 
reacts  upon  hers.  Most  certainly  I  am  aware 
that  no  one  else  can  see  the  same  in  her 
which  I  behold,  because  no  one  else  can 
call  forth  her  qualities,  any  more  than  any 
other  woman  can  call  forth  mine  &  Our 
minds,  separate  and  apart,  act  together  as 
one,  forming  a  complete  binocular,  making 
plain  that  which  to  one  alone  is  invisible. 
Q  Now  there  be  those,  wise  in  this  world's 
affairs,  who  may  say,  evidently  this  man  is  a 
victim  of  the  gumwillies.  Love  like  all  other 
things  has  its  limit.  A  month  of  close  con 
tact  usually  wears  off  the  new,  and  captivity 
reduces  the  butterfly  to  a  grub.  Don't  tell 
us — we  know !  The  very  intensity  of  a  pas 
sion  betokens  its  transient  quality.  Henry 
Finck  in  his  great  book,  "Passionate  Love 

32 




and  Personal  Beauty/'  recounts  the  great 
loves  of  history,  and  then  says,  "The  limit 
of  the  Grand  Passion  is  two  years." 
Hence  I  here  make  the  explanation  that  I 
have  known  this  woman  for  twenty  years. 
I  have  written  her  over  three  thousand 
letters  and  she  has  written  as  many  to  me. 
Every  worthy  theme  and  sentiment  I  have 
expressed  to  the  public  has  been  first  ex 
pressed  to  her,  or  more  likely,  borrowed 
from  her.  I  have  seen  her  in  almost  every 
possible  exigency  of  life :  in  health,  success, 
and  high  hope;  in  poverty,  and  what  the 
world  calls  disgrace  and  defeat.  But  here  I 
should  explain  that  disgrace  is  for  those  who 
accept  disgrace,  and  defeat  consists  in  ac 
knowledging  it. 

I  have  seen  her  face  the  robustious  fury  of 
an  attorney  weighing  three  hundred  pounds, 
and  reduce  him  to  pork  cracklings  by  her 
poise,  quiet  persistence  and  the  righteous 
ness  of  her  cause. 

She  is  at  home  with  children,  the  old,  the 
decrepit,  the  sick,  the  lonely,  the  unfor- 

33 




tunate,  the  vicious,  the  stupid,  the  insane. 
She  puts  people  at  their  ease;  she  is  one 
with  them,  but  not  necessarily  of  them.  She 
recognizes  the  divinity  in  all  of  God's  crea 
tures,  even  the  lowliest,  and  those  who  wear 
prison  stripes  are  to  her  akin,  all  this  with 
out  condoning  the  offense.  She  respects  the 
sinner,  but  not  the  sin.  Wherever  she  goes 
her  spirit  carries  with  it  the  message,  *  Teace, 
be  still!"  With  the  noble,  the  titled,  the 
famous  she  is  equally  at  home. 
I  have  seen  her  before  an  audience  of  highly 
critical,  intellectual  .and  aristocratic  people, 
stating  her  cause  with  that  same  gentle, 
considerate  courtesy  and  clearness  that  so 
becomes  her. 

The  strongest  feature  of  her  nature  is  her 
humanitarianism,  and  this  springs  from  her 
unselfish  heart  and  her  wide-reaching  im 
agination.  And  imagination  is  only  sympathy 
illumined  by  love  and  ballasted  with  brains. 
Q  She  knows  and  has  performed  every  item 
of  toil  in  the  ceaseless  round  of  woman's 
drudgery  on  the  farm.;  she  realizes  the  stress 

34 


WHITE    HYACINTHS 

and  strain  of  overworked  and  tired  mothers ; 
the  responsibility  of  caring  for  sick  and 
if  peevish  children,  the  cooking,  sewing, 
scrubbing,  washing,  care  of  vegetables  and 
milk,  the  old  black  dress  that  does  duty  on 
Sunday  with  the  bonnet  that  carries  a  faded 
flower  in  summer  and  its  frayed  ostrich 
feather  in  winter;  the  life  of  men  who 
breakfast  by  lamplight  and  go  to  work  in 
winter  woods  ere  dawn  appears,  coming 
home  at  dark,  with  chores  yet  to  do,  ere 
supper  and  bed  are  earned;  the  children 
who  follow  frozen  country  roads  to  school, 
and  eat  at  noon  their  luncheon  of  corn  bread 
and  molasses  and  salt  pork  and  count  it  good, 
being  filled  with  eager  joy  to  slide  down  hill 
ere  the  bell  rings  for  the  study  of  McGuf- 
fey's  Reader;  the  slim,  slender  girl,  mayhap 
with  stocking  down,  who  herds  turkeys  on 
the  upland  farm  in  the  cool  October  dew, 
that  she  may  get  money  to  go  to  the  distant 
High  School  or  the  coveted  "Normal,"  and 
who  finally  receives  the  longed  for  teacher's 
certificate  and  earns  money  to  help  satisfy 

35 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

the  hungry  mortgage  on  the  farm;  the 
young  women  who  work  in  box  factories 
under  the  menacing  eye  of  the  boss;  the 
tired  frayed-out  heedless  clerks ;  the  smartly 
dressed  cashiers;  the  men  who  drive  horses 
or  work  with  pick,  adze,  maul  and  ax;  the 
pilots  who  creep  their  crafts  through  fog 
along  rocky  coasts,  or  in  mid-ocean  take  the 
temperature  of  the  water,  locating  icebergs; 
the  woman  who  flees  the  world  in  order  to 
be  "  good; "  the  business  man  mousing  over 
his  accounts,  fearing  to  compare  assets  and 
liabilities,  hoping  for  a  turn  in  the  tide ;  the 
flush  of  the  orator,  the  joy  of  the  author, 
the  deep,  silent  pleasure  of  the  scientist  who 
finds  a  new  species;  the  serene  confidence 
of  the  railroad  president  who  knows  his  de 
partments  are  all  well  manned ;  the  moment 
of  nightmare  and  doubt  when  the  general 
manager  holds  his  breath  and  listens  for  the 
rumble  of  his  "Limited,"  speeding  with 
precious  treasure  through  the  all-enfolding 
night;  the  fever  of  unrest  that  comes  to  the 
captain  of  the  man-o-war  the  night  before 

36 


WHITE     HYACINTI 

the  battle;  the  soldiers  in  the  trenches,  bliss 
fully  ignorant,  needlessly  brutal  in  their  at 
tempts  to  be  brave  as  they  peer  at  the  enemy's 
camp  fires  on  the  distant  hills;  the  joyless, 
yellow-eyed  children  who  toil  in  the  mills 
and  forget  how  to  play;  boys  home  from 
school;  girls  in  cap  and  gown  graduating 
at  Wellesley  or  Vassar;  city  children  from 
the  slums  in  the  country  for  the  first  time, 
begging  permission  to  pick  dandelions  and 
daisies;  women  discarded  by  society  and 
relatives  for  faults — or  virtues ;  wives  whose 
hearts  are  stamped  upon  by  drunken  hus 
bands;  men  who  are  crazed  through  the 
vanity  of  wives  who  walk  the  border  land  of 
folly;  the  hesitating,  doubting,  fearing,  sick, 
through  lack  of  incentive — work;  to  all 
these  is  she  sister,  and  still  the  joy  in  work 
well  done,  the  calm  of  honesty,  the  sense  of 
power  through  facing  unpleasant  tasks,  the 
sweet  taste  of  food  earned  by  honest  effort, 
the  absolution  that  comes  through  follow 
ing  one's  highest  ideals,  the  self-sufficient 
purpose  and  firm  resolve  to  do  still  better 

37 


WHITE     H  Y  A  C  I  NT  H  i 

work  tomorrow  through  having  done  good 
work  today — all  these  are  hers. 
She  is  patient  under  censure,  just  or  unjust; 
and  unresentful  toward  hypocrisy,  pretence, 
and  stupidity.  Of  course  she  recognizes  that 
certain  people  are  not  hers,  and  these  she 
neither  avoids  nor  seeks  to  please  or  placate. 
Some  there  be,  who  have  called  to  her  in 
sultingly  upon  the  public  street,  and  to  sun 
dry  and  various  of  these  she  has  given  work 
and  taught  them  with  a  love  and  patience 
almost  past  belief. 

She  has  the  sublime  ability  to  forget  the 
wrongs  that  have  been  visited  upon  her, 
the  faults  of  her  friends,  and  the  good  deeds 
she  has  done. 

She  knows  history  from  its  glimmering 
dawn  in  Egypt  down  to  the  present  time. 
The  reformers,  thinkers,  martyrs,  who  have 
stood  forth  and  spoken  what  they  thought 
was  truth,  and  died  that  we  might  live,  are 
to  her  familiar  friends. 
She  knows  the  poets,  writers,  sculptors, 
musicians,  painters,  inventors,  architects, 

38 


\  C  I  N  T  H  S 

engineers  of  all  time.  And  those  who  can 
build  a  bridge  or  make  good  roads  are  to 
her  more  worthy  of  recognition  than  those 
who  preach. 

She  believes  in  the  rights  of  dumb  animals, 
of  children  and  especially  women  r&&>  She 
knows  that  woman  can  never  be  free  until 
she  owns  herself,  and  is  economically  free. 
^  To  this  end  she  believes  that  a  woman 
should  be  allowed  to  do  anything  which  she 
can  do  well,  and  that  when  she  does  a  man's 
work  she  should  receive  a  man's  wage. 
To  those  who  disagree  with  her  she  is  ever 
tolerant;  in  her  opinions  she  is  not  dog 
matic,  realizing  that  truth  is  only  a  point 
of  view,  and  even  at  the  last,  people  should 
have  the  right  to  be  wrong,  so  long  as  they 
give  this  right  to  others. 
She  does  not  mix  in  quarrels,  has  none  of 
her  own,  nor  is  she  quick  to  take  sides  in 
argument  and  wordy  warfare. 
She  keeps  out  of  cliques,  invites  no  secrets 
and  has  none  herself,  respects  the  mood  of 
those  she  is  with,  and  when  she  does  not 

39 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

know  what  to  say,  says  nothing,  and  in 
times  of  doubt  minds  her  own  business  *^£> 
Q  Her  seeming  indifference,  however,  does 
not  spring  from  a  lack  of  sympathy,  for 
nothing  that  is  human  is  alien  to  her.  On  a 
railroad  train  at  night  she  always  thinks  of 
two  persons — the  engineer,  with  one  hand 
on  the  throttle  and  the  other  on  the  air 
brake,  looking  out  down  the  two  glittering 
streaks  of  steel  that  stretch  away  into  the 
blackness  of  the  night,  and  the  other  man 
she  considers  is  the  one  a  hundred  miles  or 
so  away,  with  shade  over  his  eyes,  crouch 
ing  over  a  telegraph  key. 
At  the  hotels  she  thinks  of  those  who  wash 
dishes,  and  scrub  and  clean  windows,  and 
toward  all  servants  she  is  gentle  in  her  de 
mands  and  grateful  for  services. 
She  wins  by  abnegation  and  yet  never  re 
nounces  anything  j£  She  has  the  faith  that 
gives  all,  and  therefore  receives  all. 
She  has  proved  herself  an  ideal  mother,  not 
only  in  every  physical  function,  but  in  that 
all-brooding  tenderness  and  loving  service 

40 


W H  I  T  E     HYACINTHS 

which  is  contained  in  the  word  Motker. 
She,  of  all  mothers,  realizes  that  the  mother 
is  the  true  teacher:  that  all  good  teachers 
are  really  spiritual  mothers.  She  knows  that 
not  only  does  the  mother  teach  by  precept, 
but  by  every  action,  thought  and  at 
tribute  of  her  character.  Scolding 
mothers  have  impatient  babies 
and  educated  parents  have 
educated  children. 


41 


|HAT  supreme  tragedy  of 
motherhood,  that  the  best 
mothers  are  constantly 
training  their  children  to 
live  without  them,  is  fully 
appreciated  and  understood 
by  Alice  Hubbard. 
To  be  a  good  teacher  requires  something 
besides  knowledge.  Character  counts  more 
than  a  memory  for  facts.  And  as  the  great 
physician  benefits  his  patients  more  through 
his  presence  than  by  his  medicines,  so  does 
the  superior  teacher  leave  her  impress  upon 
her  pupils  more  through  her  moral  qualities 
than  her  precepts. 

Franz  Liszt  did  not  teach  at  all,  he  just 
filled  his  pupils  with  a  great,  welling  ambi 
tion  to  do,  and  be,  and  become. 
I  believe  it  was  Goethe  who  said  that  great 
teachers  really  do  not  teach  us  anything — in 
their  presence  we  become  different  people. 
Q  Those  who  are  admitted  into  the  close 
presence  of  Alice  Hubbard  are  transformed 
into  different  people.  This  is  especially  true 


42 


W  H  I  T  K     H  Y  A  ( I  I  N  T  H  S 

of  budding  youth — boys  and  girls  from 
fourteen  to  eighteen.  For  them  she  has  a 
peculiar  and  potent  charm — her  vivacity, 
her  animation,  her  sympathy,  her  knowl 
edge  of  flowers,  plants,  trees,  birds  and 
animals  delights  them.  Then  she  knows  the 
heroes  of  history,  and  all  of  the  literature  of 
story  and  romance  is  to  her  familiar.  If  her 
pupils  wish  to  talk,  she  lets  them — for  to  her 
listening  is  a  fine  art.  Her  mental  attitude 
brings  out  the  best  in  each,  so  in  her  pres 
ence  the  boor  becomes  gentle,  and  the  loud 
and  coarse  moderate  their  voices  and  are  on 
their  good  behavior.  She  carries  with  her 
an  aura  in  which  vulgarity  cannot  thrive 
nor  pretense  flourish.  She  has  dignity  with 
out  prudery,  pedantry,  or  priggishness  >&&> 
She  has  the  happy  faculty  of  putting  people 
at  their  ease  and  making  them  pleased  with 
themselves,  so  with  her  they  are  wise  be 
yond  their  wont  and  gracious  beyond  their 
'customed  habit. 

In  a  room  full  of  people  she  is  not  apt  to 
be  seen,  nor  to  speak,  but  if  she  chooses,  she 

43 


w 


i  T 


RVAlTTMTHS 


the  conversation,  dictates  the  theme, 
arouses  genial  animation,  and  by  her  pres 
ence  and  the  gentle,  finely  modulated  quality 
of  her  voice,  the  indifferent  and  the 

mediocre  subside  and  fade  away. 


44 


W  H  I  T  K     HYACINTHS 


LICE  HUBBARD  has  the 
bodily  qualities  of  grace, 
lightness,  ease  and  manual 
skill,  and  the  crown  of  her 
head  obeys  the  law  of  levi- 
tation  &  She  imparts  joy, 
never  heaviness  or  weari 
ness  ,@^,  Her  raiment  is  always  neat  and 
becoming,  not  expressed  in  fancy  nor  of  a 
kind  or  quality  to  beckon  or  bid  for  atten 
tion  &  In  fact,  very  few  people  can  ever 
remember  the  exact  color  of  her  attire ;  all 
that  they  can  recall  is  that  she  was  sweetly 
gracious,  considerate  and  dignified  in  all  of 
her  words  and  manner. 
She  wins  without  trying  to  win,  and  if  she 
pleases,  as  she  always  does,  it  is  without 
apparent  effort. 

In  moral  qualities  she  has  a  steadfastness  in 
the  right;  a  sharp  distinction  as  to  meum 
et  tuum;  a  persistence  in  completing  the 
task  begun ;  the  habit  of  being  on  time  and 
keeping  her  word,  even  with  servants  and 
children  and  those  who  cannot  enforce  their 

45 


claims ;  an  absence  of  all  exaggeration,  with 
no  vestige  of  boasting  as  to  what  she  has 
done  or  intends  to  do — all  of  which  sets  her 
apart  as  one  superior,  refined  and  unselfish 
beyond  the  actual  as  we  find  it,  excepting  in 
the  ideals  of  the  masters  in  imaginative 
literature. 

In  mental  qualities  she  appreciates  the  work 
of  the  great  statesmen,  creators,  inventors, 
reformers,  scientists,  and  all  those  who  live 
again  in  minds  made  better. 
Dozens  of  times  I  have  heard  her  refer  to 
the  unresentful  qualities  of  Charles  Darwin, 
and  tell  of  how  he,  as  a  scientist,  was 
ashamed  of  himself  in  once  jumping  to  a 
conclusion  by  saying,  "  It  must  be  this,  for 
if  it  is  not,  what  is  it  f " 
Herbert  Spencer's  monograph  on  Educa 
tion  is  to  her  a  text  book.  Max  Muller's 
Memories  is  her  favorite  love  story,  and 
Emerson's  Essays  are  always  to  her  a  sweet 
solace  and  rest.  She  admires  Browning,  but 
neither  dotes  nor  feeds  on  any  poet — life  is 
her  theme,  and  to  live  rightly  and  well, 

46 


without  shame,  regrets,  compromises,  ex 
planations,  apologies  or  complaints,  is  to 
her  the  finest  of  the  fine  arts. 
So  these  then  are  the  qualities  that  mark 
Alice  Hubbard  as  the  teacher  with  very 
few  peers  and  no  superiors. 
She  holds  all  ties  lightly,  never  clutching 
even  friendship, — growing  rich  by  giving  & 
She  is  an  economist  and  a  financier,  making 
a  dollar  go  farther  without  squeezing  it, 
than  any  man  or  woman  I  ever  saw  &  She 
buys  what  she  needs,  and  has  the  strength 
not  to  buy  what  she  does  not  need.  She 
never  spends  money  until  she  gets  it,  and 
avoids  debt  as  she  would  disease.  She  is  a 
model  housekeeper  and  her  ability  to  man 
age  people  and  serve  the  public  is  shown  in 
the  fact  that  the  Roycroft  Inn,  of  which 
she  is  sole  manager,  made  a  profit  the  past 
year  of  a  little  over  some  thousand  dollars. 
To  direct  and  train  the  "help,"  (at  times 
a  somewhat  ironical  term),  does  not  even 
supply  her  a  topic  for  conversation  j*  She 
never  complains  of  the  stupidity  of  others, 

47 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

knowing  that  such  complaint  is  in  itself  a 
form  of  concrete  stupidity. 
&  However,  the  management  of  the  hotel 
is  to  her  only  incidental,  for  she  is  Vice- 
President  of  the  Roycroft  Corporation,  and 
General  Superintendent  of  all  the  work.  She 
hires  all  employes  and  has  the  exclusive 
power  to  discharge,  fixing  all  salaries. 
She  also  teaches,  gives  lectures  and  writes 
at  least  one  book  a  year. 
Assuming  that  one  hundred  is  the  perfect 
standard,  a  judicial  rating  would  place  Alice 
Hubbard  somewhere  between  ninety  and 
ninety-nine  in  the  following:  As  a  mother, 
housekeeper,  economist,  methodizer,  diplo 
mat,  financier,  orator,  writer,  reformer,  in 
ventor,  humanitarian,  teacher,  philosopher. 
Q  Tammas  the  Techy  said,  "  We  must  be 
patient  with  the  fools."  >^£>  But  he  never 
was.  She  is.  And  I  myself  have  ever  prayed, 
"  For  this,  Good  Lord,  make  us  duly  thank 
ful."  She  has  an  abiding  faith  in  Nemesis, 
and  never  for  an  instant  considers  it  her 
duty  to  transform  herself  into  a  section  of 

48 


the  day  of  judgment  &&?>  She  believes  that 
people  are  punished  by  their  sins  —  not  for 
them  x@^> 

In  her  nature  there  is  a  singular  absence  of 
jealousy,  whim,  and  prejudice  &  She  can 
hear  her  enemies  praised  without  resent 
ment,  and  for  those  in  competition  with 
her,  if  such  there  be,  she  has  good  will  at 
the  best  and  indifference  at  the  worst.  These 
things  are  only  possible  in  a  very  self-cen 
tered  character,  one  tenoned  and  mortised 
in  granite,  with  an  abiding  faith  in  the 
justice  and  righteousness  of  the  Eternal  In 
telligence  in  which  we  are  bathed. 
sg^She  has  the  hospitable  mind  and  the 
receptive  heart.  She  is  alert  for  new  truth 
and  new  views  of  life,  and  is  ever  ready 
to  throw  away  a  good  idea  for  a  better  one. 
She  realizes  the  necessity  of  moderation  in 
eating,  of  regular  sleep,  of  fresh  air,  and 
regular  daily  exercise  in  the  open.  And  not 
only  does  she  realize  their  necessity,  but 
she  has  the  will  to  live  her  philosophy,  not 
being  content  to  merely  think  and  preach  it. 


49 


Physically  she  is  strong  as  a  rope  of  silk; 
she  can  outride  and  outwalk  most  athletic 
men,  although  her  form  is  slender  and 
slight.  Those  who  regard  bulk  and  beauty 
as  synonymous  never  turn  and  look  at  her 
in  the  public  streets.  In  countenance  she  is  as 
plain  as  was  Julius  Caesar,  and  to  his  busts 
she  bears  a  striking  resemblance  in  the 
features  of  nose,  mouth,  chin  and  eyes. 
In  the  moral  qualities  of  patience,  poise  and 
persistence  she  is  certainly  Caesarian,  and 
in  these  she  outranks  any  woman  I  have 
been  able  to  resurrect  from  the  dusty  tomes 
of  days  gone  by. 

This,  then,  is  my  one  close  companion,  my 
confidante,  my  friend,  my  wife;  and  my 
relation  with  her  will  be  my  sole  passport 
to  Paradise,  if  there  is  one  beyond  this  life. 
Q£  I  married  a  rich  woman — one  rich  in 
love,  loyalty,  gentleness,  insight,  gratitude, 
appreciation.  One  who  caused  me,  at  thirty- 
three  years  of  age,  to  be  born  again. 
To  this  woman  I  owe  all  I  am — and  to  her 
the  world  owes  its  gratitude  for  any  and  all, 

50 


W  H  I  T         H  Y  A  C  I  N  T  H  S 

be  it  much  or  little,  that  I  have  given  it. 
My  religion  is  all  in  my  wife's  name.  And 
I  am  not  bankrupt,  for  all  she  has  is  mine, 
if  I  can  use  it,  and  in  degree  I  have. 
And  why  I  prize  life,  and  desire  to  live,  is 
that  I  may  give  the  world  more  of  the  treas 
ures  of  her  heart  and  mind,  realizing  with 
perfect  faith,  that  the  supply  coming  from 
Infinity,  can  never  be  lessened  nor  decreased. 


51 


TIME  AND   CHANCE  ARE    OFTEN 
MASTERS     OF     OUR     FATE 

WILTED    HYACINTHS 

FADED  flower  flung  from 
the  grated  window  of  a 
prison  cell,  falls  at  the  feet 
of  a  passer-by — a  woman 
of  the  town. 

But  why  should  I  call  her 
a  woman  ?  She  is  a  creature 
of  the  night.  She  belongs  to  all  and  to  none, 
her  home  is  a  hovel  and  she  lives  in  hell — a 
hell  of  her  own  preparing. 
Once  she  was  courted,  flattered,  petted, 
pampered.  She  had  her  nightmare  of  glory 
when  gold  was  showered  upon  her,  silks 
rustled,  perfumes  filled  the  air,  bouquets 
burdened  her  table,  carriages  with  footmen 
stopped  at  her  door  ^  Mansions,  servants, 
joyous  suppers,  laughter,  diamonds,  pearls 
— to  do  nothing  and  have  everything,  this 
was  her  ambition.. 

She  has  drunk  to  its  dregs  the  cup  of  noth 
ingness.  She  has  sought  the   potion   that 


52 


W  H  IT  E     HYACINTHS 

gives  f orgetf ulness ;  for  desertion,  abandon 
ment,  death  follows  as  an  unerring  sequence 
on  all  the  gleam,  glitter  and  glamour  that 
have  gone  before.  Q  And  now  she  breathes 
only  the  sulphur  fumes  of  Gehenna,  and  the 
scant  silver  that  comes  her  way  goes  for  the 
drug  that  brings  oblivion. 
With  bloodshot  eyes,  disheveled  hair,  and 
burning  thirst,  she  hurries  along — watched, 
hunted,  hooted  •&  She  draws  her  tattered 
shawl  closer  about  her  benumbed  frame  as 
the  cutting  blasts  of  winter,  rushing  down 
alleys  and  from  around  sharp  corners,  hunt 
her  out. 

The  flower  drops  at  her  feet. 
She  stops,  looks  around,  no  one  is  watching, 
she  picks  it  up — yes,  it  is  a  spray  of  hyacinth. 
She  looks  up  to  see  from  whence  it  came, 
and  high  up  she  thinks  she  sees  a  hand 
thrust  out  from  a  grated  window. 
Some  one  is  waving  a  hand  to  her — to  her. 
&  Who  can  it  be — some  one  has  thought 
of  her — some  one  has  sent  her  a  flower! 
Cf  She  brushes  her  hand  across  her  eyes,  as 

53 


WHITE     H  Y  A  C  I  N  T  H'S 

if  to  clear  her  misty  vision  and  looks  up 
again  &%&> 

This  time  she  sees  nothing,  only  the  sullen 
front  of  a  great  prison  wall,  jutting  stone, 
grated  windows,  stone  piled  upon  stone. 
She  thrusts  the  flower  into  her  bosom,  and 
forgetful  of  where  she  was  going,  turns 
about  and  hastens  to  the  den  she  calls  home. 
Some  one  has  thrown  a  flower — not  the 
flowers  such  as  patronizing  women  of  the 
flower  mission  bring  with  tracts  and  words 
of  advice — not  that — a  flower  from  the  hand 
of  a  man,  a  man  in  trouble,  disgraced  like 
herself,  in  bonds  &  He  has  thrown  her  a 
flower.  Who  is  this  man  of  whom  she 
thinks !  Alas,  she  does  not  know.  Years  and 
years,  aye,  centuries  ago,  when  she  wore 
pinafores  and  lived  with  her  father,  mother, 
brothers  and  sisters  in  the  country,  she 
dreamed  of  this  man,  this  man  who  would 
come  to  her  and  love  her,  and  give  her 
peace  and  freedom. 

It  is  the  same  dream  come  back — it  is  he. 
He  will  deliver  her  from  the  body  of  this 

54 


TIT-  TT     T    *"p    p*  TT    VT      A      /-»     T     T^"    HT1    TT     O 

death.  He  has  flung  her  a  flower.  He  is  in 
trouble  ^  What  can  she  do  to  help  him ! 
Q  She  is  a  woman.  She  is  not  old.  God 
sent  her  into  life  and  she  has  a  right  to  love, 
to  tenderness,  to  motherhood  and  a  home. 
No  chill  of  doubt  can  put  out  the  eternal 
fire — she  loves  the  ideal! 
This  is  her  misery,  her  disgrace  and  her 
crown.  Illusions  will  not  fade  away,  she  has 
prayed  and  watched  and  longed  for  this — 
some  one  loves  her  &  He  has  flung  her  a 
flower  /&^» 

When  he  is  released  he  will  come  to  her 
and  take  her  away,  and  they  will  leave  this 
life  of  horror,  and  fly  to  the  country  and 
make  themselves  a  nest  as  the  birds  do  &&?> 
Some  one  has  flung  her  a  flower. 
She  belongs  to  him  and  him  alone.  She  has 
loved  him  all  these  years.  She  has  waited 
for  him.  God  knows  she  has  done  wrong, 
but  God  knows,  too,  her  heart  is  pure.  She 
appeals  to  the  higher  law — a  power  greater 
than  herself  has  been  pulling  her  down  to 
death — but  God  knows,  God  knows!  For 

55 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

was  it  not  God  who  allowed  her  to  be 
tempted  beyond  her  strength  ? 
Some  one  has  flung  her  a  flower.  It  has 
awakened  in  her  the  ideal — she  had  thought 
it  dead,  dead  and  nailed  down  with  the 
coffin  nails  of  her  crimes. 
But  no,  there  is  light  yet.  She  wishes  to  do 
penance,  to  condone,  to  succor,  to  sanctify 
herself  to  some  one,  to  be  kind,  to  be  useful. 
The  reflexes  of  the  heart  are  as  sure  and 
certain  as  the  march  of  the  planets.  The 
desires  of  the  heart  are  fixed  stars — clouds 
may  obscure,  but  wait  and  you  shall  see  the 
light  &  There  is  that  in  souls  which  never 
perishes  &&> 

Some  one  has  flung  this  woman  a  flower 
and  she  becomes  happy  with  a  horrible 
happiness.  She  sees  a  cottage,  warmed  and 
lighted;  a  kettle  singing  on  the  hearth; 
supper  on  the  table  for  him  who  was  even 
now  coming  to  his  home,  their  home, 
whistling  from  his  work;  she  sees  in  the 
corner  a  cradle,  and  she  begins  crooning  a 
lullaby  to  a  babe  that  she  has  never  pressed 

56 


to  her  aching  breast.  Q  Some  one  has  flung 
her  a  flower.  Cf  In  the  direst  gloom,  in  the 
chill  of  abandonment,  in  the  black  of  darkest 
pathways,  in  the  dim,  gray  light  of  prison 
cells  where  the  sun  never  enters,  before  stern 
judges,  while  policemen  leer  &  men  restrain 
not  their  evil  tongues,  beneath  the  maze  of 
pitfalls,  in  nights  of  horror  &  blackest  chaos 
there  is  a  gleam  of  light  ^  It  grows  into  a 
flame.  What  think  you  it  can  be? 
It  is  love  —  it  is  the  ideal.  It  exists  even  in 
hell.  God  never  quite  withdraws  His  Holy 
Spirit.  Some  one  has  flung  her  a  flower. 


57 


SOME  Do  NOT  HEAR  OPPORTUNITY 
WHEN  SHE  KNOCKS  BECAUSE  THEY 
ARE  KNOCKING  AT  THE  TIME 


o  P 


r> 


r  u  N  i  T  Y 

HERE  is  a  gray-bearded 
maxim,  honored  on  ac 
count  of  its  venerable  age, 
which  runs  thus :  "  Oppor 
tunity  knocks  once  at  each 
man's  door."  >&&>  John  J. 
i  Ingalls  once  went  a-sonnet- 
ing  around  this  proverb,  and  some  say  he 
wrote  the  finest  sonnet  ever  written  by  an 
American.  I  am  inclined  to  think  this  is  so; 
and  if  it  is,  it  proves  for  us  that  truth  is  one 
thing  and  poetry  another. 
The  actual  fact  is  that  in  this  day  oppor 
tunity  not  only  knocks  at  your  door,  but  is 
playing  an  anvil  chorus  on  every  man's 
door,  and  lays  for  the  owner  around  the 
corner  with  a  club.  The  world  is  in  sore 
need  of  men  who  can  do  things.  Indeed, 
cases  can  easily  be  recalled  by  every  one 
where  opportunity  actually  smashed  in  the 

58 




door  and  collared  her  candidate  and  dragged 
him  forth  to  success  &&*>  These  cases  are 
exceptional;  usually  you  have  to  go  out  and 
meet  opportunity  ^  But  the  only  way  you 
can  get  away  from  opportunity  is  to  lie 
down  and  die.  Opportunity  does  not  trouble 
dead  men,  nor  dead  ones  who  flatter  them 
selves  that  they  are  alive. 
Let  no  man  repine  on  account  of  lack  of 
early  advantages.  Rare-ripes  run  away  from 
advantages — they  can  not  digest  them.  "  If 
I  had  my  say  I  would  set  all  young  folks  at 
work  and  send  the  old  ones  to  school," 
said  Socrates,  420  B.  C. 
What  Socrates  meant  was  that  after  you 
have  battled  a  bit  with  actual  life  and  begun 
to  feel  your  need  for  education,  you  are,  for 
the  first  time,  ready  to  take  advantage  of 
your  opportunities  and  learn. 
Education  is  a  matter  of  desire.  An  educa 
tion  can  not  be  imparted.  It  has  to  be  won 
and  you  win  by  working. 
And  this  fact  also  holds :  The  best  educated 
men  are  those  who  get  their  brain  develop- 

59 


W  HIT  E  ;H  Y A 

ment  out  of  their  daily  work,  or  at  the  time 
they  are  doing  the  work.  Quitting  work  in 
order  to  get  an  education  was  the  idea  of  a 
monk  who  fled  from  the  world  because  he 
thought  it  was  bad;  a  fallacy  we  have  par 
tially  outgrown.  It  takes  work  to  get  an 
education;  it  takes  work  to  use  it,  and  it 
takes  work  to  keep  it. 

The  great  blunder  of  the  colleges  is  that 
they  have  lifted  men  out  of  life  in  order  to 
educate  them  for  life.  All  educated  college 
men  know  this  and  acknowledge  it. 
In  his  last  annual  report  President  Eliot  of 
Harvard  made  a  strong  appeal  to  parents  to 
get  their  children  into  the  practical  world 
of  life  as  soon  as  possible,  and  not  expect  a 
college  degree  to  insure  success. 
Those  who  want  to  grow  and  evolve  should 
not  give  too  much  time  to  the  latest  novel 
and  daily  paper.  Don't  spread  yourself  out 
thin.  Concentrate  on  a  few  things — the  very 
best  educated  men  do  not  know  everything. 
C£  Choose  what  you  will  be  and  then  get  at 
it.  You'll  win. 

60 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

If  you  quit,  it  simply  shows  you  did  not 
want  an  education;  you  only  thought  you 
did — you  are  not  willing  to  pay  the  price. 
Q  The  other  day  in  the  Michigan  State 
Penitentiary  at  Jackson,  I  saw  in  a  convict's 
cell  three  architect's  designs  tacked  on  the 
wall,  and  on  a  shelf  were  several  books  from 
a  correspondence  school.  "Is  it  possible," 
I  asked  Dr.  Pray,  the  prison  doctor,  "that 
a  convict  is  taking  a  correspondence  course 
in  architecture  ?  "  ' '  Not  only  that, ' '  was  the 
reply,  "but  a  good  many  of  our  men  are 
studying  hard  to  better  their  mental  condi 
tion.  This  particular  man  has  gotten  beyond 
the  amateur  stage  ,*?  You  see  he  has  been 
working  at  his  course  for  three  years.  He 
draws  plans  for  us  and  is  doing  work  for 
parties  outside."  Then  we  hunted  up  the 
man  and  found  him  in  the  marble  shop. 
if  He  seemed  pleased  to  know  that  I  had 
noticed  his  work.  "You  see,"  he  said,  "  I 
only  work  six  hours  a  day  for  the  state,  and 
after  that  my  time  is  my  own,  and  I  try  to 
improve  it;  there  are  no  bowling  alleys,  pool 

61 


WHIT  ST  T  H  S 

rooms,  nor  saloons  here — no  place  to  go." 
And  he  smiled.  I  tried  to,  but  could  not — 
my  eyes  were  filled  with  tears  $f*  A  convict 
getting  a  practical  education,  and  so  many 
of  us  who  think  we  are  free,  frittering  away 
our  time. 

If,  in  its  anxiety  to  present  itself,  opportunity 
will  break  into  jail,  surely  those  outside  can 
not  complain  of  opportunity's  lack  of  persis 
tence  in  hunting  out  the  ready  and  willing. 


62 


No  MAN  CAN  INSTRUCT  OTHERS  IN 
ANYTHING  >^r  WE  CAN,  HOWEVER, 
AWAKEN  THOUGHT  &  AROUSE  IMPULSES 


C     H     E     R     S 

T  is  a  great  thing  to  teach. 
,«?  I  am  never  more  com- 
plimented  than  when 
some  one  addresses  me  as 
"teacher."  To  give  your 
self  in  a  way  that  will  in 
spire  others  to  think,  to  do, 
to  become — what  nobler  ambition !  To  be 
a  good  teacher  demands  a  high  degree  of 
altruism,  for  one  must  be  willing  to  sink 
self,  to  die — as  it  were — that  others  may 
live.  There  is  something  in  it  very  much 
akin  to  motherhood — a  brooding  quality. 
Every  true  mother  realizes  at  times  that 
her  children  are  only  loaned  to  her — sent 
from  God — and  the  attributes  of  her  body 
and  mind  are  being  used  by  some  Power 
for  a  purpose.  The  thought  tends  to  refine 
the  heart  of  its  dross,  obliterate  pride  and 
make  her  feel  the  sacredness  of  her  office. 

63 


WHITE     HYACINTH; 

All  good  men  everywhere  recognize  the 
holiness  of  motherhood — this  miracle  by 
which  the  race  survives. 
There  is  a  touch  of  pathos  in  the  thought 
that  while  lovers  live  to  make  themselves 
necessary  to  each  other,  the  mother  is 
working  to  make  herself  unnecessary  to  her 
children.  And  the  entire  object  of  teaching 
is  to  enable  the  scholar  to  do  without  his 
teacher  ,*?  Graduation  should  take  place  at 
the  vanishing  point  of  the  teacher. 
Yes,  the  efficient  teacher  has  in  him  much 
of  this  mother-quality.  Thoreau,  you  re 
member,  said  that  genius  is  essentially  femi 
nine;  if  he  had  teachers  in  mind  his  remark 
was  certainly  true  ,*?  The  men  of  much 
motive  power  are  not  the  best  teachers — 
the  arbitrary  and  imperative  type,  that 
would  bend  all  minds  to  match  its  own, 
may  build  bridges,  tunnel  mountains,  dis 
cover  continents  and  capture  cities,  but  it 
cannot  teach.  In  the  presence  of  such  a 
towering  personality  freedom  dies,  spon 
taneity  droops,  and  thought  slinks  away  into 

64 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

a  corner.  The  brooding  quality,  the  patience 
that  endures,  and  the  yearning  of  mother 
hood,  are  all  absent  ^&&>  The  man  is  a 
commander,  not  a  teacher;  and  there  yet 
remains  a  grave  doubt  whether  the  warrior 
and  ruler  have  not  used  their  influence 
more  to  make  this  world  a  place  of  the 
skull,  than  the  abode  of  happiness  and 
prosperity.  The  orders  to  kill  all  the  first 
born,  and  those  over  ten  years  of  age,  were 
not  given  by  teachers. 

The  teacher  is  one  who  makes  two  ideas 
grow  where  there  was  only  one  before. 
Q  Just  here  seems  a  good  place  to  say  that 
we  live  in  a  very  stupid,  old  world,  round 
like  an  orange  and  slightly  flattened  at  the 
polls.  The  proof  of  this  seemingly  pessimis 
tic  remark,  made  by  a  hopeful  and  cheerful 
man,  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  place  small 
premium  in  either  honor  or  money  on  the 
business  of  teaching.  As  in  the  olden  times, 
barbers  and  scullions  ranked  with  musicians, 
and  the  Master  of  the  Hounds  wore  a  big 
ger  medal  than  the  Poet-Laureate,  so  do 

65 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

we  pay  our  teachers  the  same  as  coachmen 
and  coal-heavers,  giving  them  a  plentiful 
lack  of  everything  but  overwork. 
I  will  never  be  quite  willing  to  admit  that 
this  country  is  enlightened,  until  we  cease 
the  inane  and  parsimonious  policy  of  trying 
to  drive  all  the  really  strong  men  and 
women  out  of  the  teaching  profession  by 
putting  them  on  the  pay-roll  at  one-half  the 
rate,  or  less  than  that  which  the  same  brains 
and  energy  can  command  elsewhere.  In  the 
year  of  our  Lord,  Nineteen  Hundred  Six, 
in  a  time  of  peace,  we  appropriated  four 
hundred  million  dollars  for  war  and  war 
appliances,  and  this  sum  is  just  double  the 
cost  of  the  entire  public  school  system  in 
America.  It  is  not  the  necessity  of  economy 
that  dictates  our  actions  in  this  matter  of 
education — we  simply  are  not  enlightened. 
Q  But  this  thing  cannot  always  last — I  look 
for  the  time  when  we  shall  set  apart  the 
best  and  noblest  men  and  women  of  earth 
for  teachers,  and  their  compensation  will 
be  so  adequate  that  they  will  be  free  to  give 

66 


^ 

themselves  for  the  benefit  of  the  race,  with 
out  apprehension  of  a  yawning  almshouse. 
A  liberal  policy  will  be  for  our  own  good, 
just  as  a  matter  of  cold   expediency; 
it  will  be  enlightened  self-interest. 


67 


ONE  CAN   BEAR  GRIEF  BUT   IT 
TAKES   Two    To    BE    GLAD 


F.RIENDSHI 


HEN  Charles  Kingsley  was 
asked  for  the  secret  of  his 
exquisite  sympathy  and  fine 
imagination,  he  paused  a 
space,  and  then  answered, 
"I  had  a  friend." 
The  desire  for  friendship 
is  strong  in  every  human  heart.  We  crave 
the  companionship  of  those  who  can  under 
stand.  The  nostalgia  of  life  presses,  we  sigh 
for  "home,"  and  long  for  the  presence  of 
one  who  sympathizes  with  our  aspirations, 
comprehends  our  hopes  and  is  able  to  par 
take  of  our  joys.  A  thought  is  not  our  own 
until  we  impart  it  to  another,  and  the  con 
fessional  seems  a  crying  need  of  every 
human  soul  &&?>  The  desire  for  sympathy 
dwells  in  every  human  heart. 
We  reach  the  divine  through  some  one, 
and  by  dividing  our  joy  with  this  one  we 
double  it,  and  come  in  touch  with  the  uni- 

68 


WHITE T  HS 

versal.  The  sky  is  never  so  blue,  the  birds 
never  sing  so  blithely,  our  acquaintances 
are  never  so  gracious  as  when  we  are  filled 
with  love  for  some  one. 
Being  in  harmony  with  one  we  are  in  har 
mony  with  all  f&  The  lover  idealizes  and 
clothes  the  beloved  with  virtues  that  only 
exist  in  his  imagination.  The  beloved  is 
consciously  or  unconsciously  aware  of  this, 
and  endeavors  to  fulfill  the  high  ideal;  and 
in  the  contemplation  of  the  transcendent 
qualities  that  his  mind  has  created,  the  lover 
is  raised  to  heights  otherwise  impossible. 
Q  Should  the  beloved  pass  from  earth  while 
this  condition  of  exaltation  exists,  the  con 
ception  is  indelibly  impressed  upon  the 
soul,  just  as  the  last  earthly  view  is  said  to 
be  photographed  upon  the  retina  of  the 
dead.  The  highest  earthly  relationship  is  in 
its  very  essence  fleeting,  for  men  are  fallible, 
and  living  in  a  world  where  material  wants 
jostle,  and  time  and  change  play  their  cease 
less  parts,  gradual  obliteration  comes  and 
disillusion  enters  S&  But  the  memory  of  a 

69 


sweet  companionship  once  fully  possessed,  & 
snapped  by  fate  at  its  supremest  moment, 
can  never  die  from  out  the  heart.  All  other 
troubles  are  swallowed  up  in  this,  and  if  the 
individual  is  of  too  stern  a  fiber  to  be  com 
pletely  crushed  into  the  dust,  time  will 
come  bearing  healing,  and  the  memory  of 
that  once  ideal  condition  will  chant  in  the 
heart  a  perpetual  eucharist. 
And  I  hope  the  wrorld  has  passed  forever 
from  the  nightmare  of  pity  for  the  dead: 
they  have  ceased  from  their  labors  and  are 
at  rest. 

But  for  the  living,  when  death  has  entered 
and  removed  the  best  friend,  fate  has  done 
her  worst;  the  plummet  has  sounded  the 
depths  of  grief,  and  thereafter  nothing  can 
inspire  terror.  At  one  fell  stroke  all  petty 
annoyances  and  corroding  cares  are  sunk 
into  nothingness.  The  memory  of  a  great 
love  lives  enshrined  in  undying  amber.  It 
affords  a  ballast  'gainst  all  the  storms  that 
blow,  and  although  it  lends  an  unutterable 
sadness,  it  imparts  an  unspeakable  peace. 

70 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

Where  there  is  this  haunting  memory  of  a 
great  love  lost,  there  is  always  forgiveness, 
charity  and  a  sympathy  that  makes  the  man 
brother  to  all  who  suffer  and  endure.  The 
individual  himself  is  nothing :  he  has  noth 
ing  to  hope  for,  nothing  to  lose,  nothing 
to  win,  and  this  constant  memory  of  the 
high  and  exalted  friendship  that  was  once 
his  is  a  nourishing  source  of  strength;  it 
constantly  purifies  the  mind  and  inspires 
the  heart  to  nobler  living  and  diviner  think 
ing.  The  man  is  in  communication  with 
elemental  conditions. 

To  have  known  an  ideal  friendship,  and 
had  it  fade  from  your  grasp  and  flee  as  a 
shadow  before  it  is  touched  with  the  sordid 
breath  of  selfishness,  or  sullied  by  misunder 
standing,  is  the  highest  good.  And  the  con 
stant  dwelling  in  sweet,  sad  recollection  on 
the  exalted  virtues  of  the  one  that  has  gone, 
tends  to  crystallize  these  very  virtues  in  the 
heart  of  him  who  meditates  them  /?  The 
beauty  with  which  love  adores  its  object  be 
comes  the  possession  of  the  one  who  loves. 

71 


IT  Is  LOVE  THAT  VITALIZES  THE 
INTELLECT  To  THE  CREATIVE  POINT 

THE  KINDERGARTEN 

HE  work  of  Frederick 
Froebel  was  put  back  to  a 
degree  that  no  man  can 
compute,  through  the  cold 
ness,  indifference  and  ac 
tual  opposition  of  men  who 
should  have  stood  by  him 
and  upheld  him.  Q  The  kindergarten  is  a 
complete  reversal  of  barbaric  educational 
schemes  that  did  not  spare  the  rod  ,*?  We 
started  in  with  the  assumption  that  the  child 
was  born  in  sin,  and  "in  iniquity  did  my 
mother  conceive  me/'  a  slander  on  the 
children  and  a  libel  on  motherhood. 
But  so  grounded  were  we  in  error  that  in 
our  teaching  of  children,  the  elements  of 
fear,  suppression  and  punishment  were  ever 
present.  We  used  the  studies  as  a  club  and 
if  a  child  did  wrong  we  doubled  his  lessons. 
The  plan  of  fining  the  delinquent  forty 
lines  of  Virgil  made  him  love  Virgil,  did  it 


72 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

not?  If  there  were  a  better  way  of  making 
books  more  distasteful  than  to  use  them  as 
punishment  I  do  not  know  it. 
The  ecclesiastic  English  boarding  school 
barbarity  yet  has  its  defenders  ,£&>  At  the 
tender  age  of  six  or  seven  we  removed 
the  child  from  his  parents  in  the  name  of 
discipline.  We  sought  to  smother  parental 
love  and  strangle  affection,  and  we  nearly 
succeeded. 

Froebel  struck  right  at  the  root  of  error 
when  he  referred  to  the  children  as  the 
"Little  souls  fresh  from  God."  Froebel 
believed  in  the  divinity  of  the  child.  Most 
Christians  up  to  his  time  acted  as  if  they 
believed  that  when  Christ  said,  "Suffer 
little  children  to  come  unto  me  and  forbid 
them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,"  he  had  a  rattan  hidden  behind 
him.  The  practice  of  falling  upon  children 
with  rods,  straps,  paddles,  rulers  and  hair 
brushes  has  been  very  popular,  not  so  much 
possibly  to  benefit  the  child  as  to  relieve 
the  pressure  of  pent-up  emotion  in  the 

73 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

parent.  Froebel's  idea  was  that  the  child 
was  a  human  flower,  and  the  school  should 
be  a  garden  where  souls  could  blossom  in 
the  sunshine  of  love. 

Froebel  studied  the  inclinations  of  the  child 
and  sought  to  move  in  line  with  nature. 
He  utilized  the  tendency  to  play;  just  as  we 
in  degree  use  the  tides  of  the  sea  and  the 
winds  that  blow  to  turn  the  wheels  of  trade. 
Q  To  use  these  welling  tides  of  our  nature, 
Froebel  said,  "will  lead  us  on  to  the  Good, 
or  if  you  prefer,  to  God/' 
So  in  his  teaching  the  playing  of  games  had 
an  important  part.  Play,  song,  and  happy, 
useful  effort — all  working  together  for  a 
common  purpose!  Socrates,  four  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before  Christ,  taught  that 
courtesy,  kindness  and  self-possession  were 
of  more  importance  than  facts  grubbed  from 
books — that  is  to  say,  it  is  qualities  that 
make  a  man  great  and  not  knowledge. 
Aristotle  followed  up  the  same  idea  and  in 
his  education  of  Alexander,  the  child  im 
pulse  to  collect  specimens  was  utilized,  and 

74 




Aristotle  and  his  pupils  formed  the  world's 
first  herbarium  and  the  first  zoological  gar 
den.  Q  Froebel  led  his  little  band  of  pupils 
out  into  the  woods  and  fields  and  they 
collected  flowers,  plants,  birds,  nests,  fungi, 
and  became  acquainted  with  the  beautiful 
world  of  nature  just  as  a  matter  of  curiosity, 
pleasure  and  play. 

To  arbitrarily  punish  or  embarrass  a  child 
Froebel  considered  a  great  sin,  because  to 
do  so  might  be  to  implant  in  the  child's 
mind  the  seeds  of  hate  and  revenge  that 
would  poison  its  entire  life. 
Froebel  saw  this  potent  fact,  that  unless  he 
could  impress  upon  the  parents  the  right 
eousness  of  his  methods,  he  could  make 
little  head.  He  said,  "The  teacher  is  the 
foster  parent  of  the  child  for  a  few  hours 
each  day,  and  unless  the  home  and  school 
work  together  and  are  in  harmony,  my 
work  will  be  in  vain." 
So  he  invited  the  parents  to  his  school  and 
also  had  mothers'  meetings  where  he  sought 
to  explain  the  reasonableness  of  his  work. 

75 


W  H  I  T  1 ;  1  N 

The  theological  idea  at  the  time  was  that 
he  child  should  be  disciplined,  his  spirit 
broken,  and  that  the  dunce  cap  of  disgrace 
was  a  good  thing.  Froebel  sought  to  make 
his  work  affirmative,  not  negative,  but  in 
spite  of  his  gentle  diplomatic  ways  he  met 
with  strong  opposition  and  constant  ridi 
cule.  The  only  pupils  he  could  get  were 
those  too  young  to  go  to  the  regular  schools, 
and  these  were  turned  over  to  him  because 
he  relieved  the  parents  of  their  care. 
His  intent  and  expectations  were  to  carry 
his  methods  right  up  through  all  the  grades, 
even  into  the  university,  and  on  through 
life.  So  actually,  the  kindergarten  plan  is  a 
system  of  life,  not  merely  a  system  of  school 
teaching. 

Froebel  knew  his  methods  were  right — he 
never  faltered  in  his  faith.  But  the  constant 
unkind  criticisms  of  rival  teachers  who 
clung  to  monastic  methods,  the  stupidity  of 
parents  and  the  opposition  of  school  boards 
wore  him  out,  and  he  died  in  middle  life. 
But  with  his  last  dying  breath,  in  broken 

76 


WHITE     H  Y  AC  I  NTH  S 

whisper  he  said  to  his  nurse,  "The  world 
will  yet  accept  my  words — the  idea  of  a 
child-garden  will  live !   I  am  dying  but  my 
thought  will  not  perish — God  cannot  afford 
to  allow  it  to  wither." 
Can  a  person  of  intelligence  now  be  found 
who  dares  say  that  Frederich  Froebel  was 
not  a  very  great  man — and  does  any  one 
believe    that   Froebel  did    not   care  what 
people  thought  about  him  ? 
Isn't  this  true,  that  the  greater  the  man, 
the   more  he  desires  to  bless  and  benefit 
humanity,  the  more  he  actually  does 
care  what  people  think  of  him? 


77 


AN  OUNCE  OF   LOYALTY  Is   WORTH 
A    POUND    OF    CLEVERNESS 

HUNDRED-POINTMEN 

|HE  other  day  I  wrote  to  a 
banker-friend  inquiring  as 
to  the  responsibility  of  a 
certain  person  ,*?  The  ans 
wer  came  back,  thus:  He 
is  a  Hundred-Point  man  in 
everything  and  anything  he 
undertakes.  Q  I  read  the  telegram  and  then 
pinned  it  up  over  my  desk  where  I  could 
see  it.  That  night  it  sort  of  stuck  in  my 
memory.  I  dreamed  of  it. 
The  next  day  I  showed  the  message  to  a 
fellow  I  know  pretty  well,  and  said,  "I'd 
rather  have  that  said  of  me  than  to  be  called 
a  great  this  or  that." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  has  left  on  record 
the  statement  that  you  could  not  throw  a 
stone  on  Boston  Common  without  carom 
ing  on  three  poets,  two  essayists,  and  a 
playwright. 
Hundred-Point  men  are  not  so  plentiful. 

78 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

Q  A  Hundred-Point  man  is  one  who  is  true 
to  every  trust;  who  keeps  his  word;  who  is 
loyal  to  the  firm  that  employs  him ;  who 
does  not  listen  for  insults  nor  look  for 
slights;  who  carries  a  civil  tongue  in  his 
head;  who  is  polite  to  strangers,  without 
being  " fresh;"  who  is  considerate  towards 
servants;  who  is  moderate  in  his  eating  and 
drinking;  who  is  willing  to  learn;  who  is 
cautious  and  yet  courageous. 
Hundred-Point  men  may  vary  much  in 
ability,  but  this  is  always  true — they  are  safe 
men  to  deal  with,  whether  drivers  of  drays, 
motor  men,  clerks,  cashiers,  engineers  or 
presidents  of  railroads. 
Paranoiacs  are  people  who  are  suffering 
from  fatty  enlargement  of  the  ego  &  They 
want  the  best  seats  in  the  synagogue,  they 
demand  bouquets,  compliments,  obeisance, 
and  in  order  to  see  what  the  papers  will  say 
next  morning,  they  sometimes  obligingly 
commit  suicide. 

The  paranoiac  is  the  antithesis  of  the  Hun 
dred-Point   man.  The  paranoiac  imagines 

79 


WHITE     HYACI  NT  H  S 

he  is  being  wronged,  that  some  one  has  it 
in  for  him,  and  that  the  world  is  down  on 
him.  He  is  given  to  that  which  is  strange, 
peculiar,  uncertain,  eccentric  and  erratic. 
Q  The  Hundred-Point  man  may  not  look 
just  like  all  other  men,  or  dress  like  them, 
or  talk  like  them,  but  what  he  does  is  true 
to  his  own  nature.  He  is  himself. 
He  is  more  interested  in  doing  his  work 
than  in  what  people  will  say  about  it.  He 
does  not  consider  the  gallery.  He  acts  his 
thought  and  thinks  little  of  the  act. 
I  never  knew  a  Hundred-Point  man  who 
was  not  one  brought  up  from  early  youth 
to  make  himself  useful,  and  to  economize 
in  the  matter  of  time  and  money. 
Necessity  is  ballast. 

The  paranoiac,  almost  without  exception,  is 
one  who  has  been  made  exempt  from  work. 
He  has  been  petted,  waited  upon,  coddled, 
cared  for,  laughed  at  and  chuckled  to. 
The  excellence  of  the  old-fashioned  big 
family  was  that  no  child  got  an  undue 
amount  of  attention.  The  antique  idea  that 




the  child  must  work  for  his  parents  until 
the  day  he  was  twenty-one  was  a  deal  better 
for  the  youth  than  to  let  him  get  it  into  his 
head  that  his  parents  must  work  for  him. 
Q  Nature  intended  that  we  should  all  be 
poor — that  we  should  earn  our  bread  every 
day  before  we  eat  it. 

When  you  find  the  Hundred-Point  man 
you  will  find  one  who  lives  like  a  person  in 
moderate  circumstances,  no  matter  what 
his  finances  are.  Every  man  who  thinks  he 
has  the  world  by  the  tail  and  is  about  to 
snap  its  demnition  head  off  for  the  delec 
tation  of  mankind,  is  unsafe,  no  matter  how 
great  his  genius  in  the  line  of  specialties. 
Q  The  Hundred-Point  man  looks  after  just 
one  individual,  and  that  is  the  man  under 
his  own  hat;  he  is  one  who  does  not  spend 
money  until  he  earns  it;  who  pays  his  way; 
who  knows  that  nothing  is  ever  given  for 
nothing;  who  keeps  his  digits  off  other 
people's  property.  When  he  does  not  know 
what  to  say,  why,  he  says  nothing,  and  when 
he  does  not  know  what  to  do,  does  not  do  it. 

81 


WHITE     H  Y  AC  I  NT  H  S 

We  should  mark  on  moral  qualities  not 
merely  mental  attainment  or  proficiency, 
because  in  the  race  of  life  only  moral  qual 
ities  count.  We  should  rate  on  judgment, 
application  and  intent  ^  Men  by  habit  and 
nature  who  are  untrue  to  a  trust,  are  dan 
gerous  just  in  proportion  as  they  are  clever. 
I  would  like  to  see  a  university  devoted  to 
turning  out  safe  men  instead  of  merely 
clever  ones. 

How  would  it  do  for  a  college  to  give  one 
degree,  and  one  only,  to  those  who  are 
worthy,  the  degree  of  H.  P.  ? 
Would  it  not  be  worth  striving  for,  to 
have  a  college  president  say  of  you,  over  his 
own  signature:  He  is  a  Hundred-Point  man 
in  everything  and  anything  that  he  undertakes! 


82 


IF  TRUTH  BE  MIGHTY  AND  GOD  ALL- 
POWERFUL,  His  CHILDREN  NEED  NOT 
FEAR  DISASTER  WILL  FOLLOW  FREEDOM 

As   To  SCIENCE 

T  was  not  so  very  long  ago 
that  the  profession  of  teach 
ing  was  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  theologians.  All 
things  secular  and  sacred, 
that  were  taught  to  young 
or  old,  were  taught  by 
priests.  Priests  decided  what  books  should 
be  printed  and  what  not  &  The  priest  de 
cided  as  to  what  should  be  taught,  and  how 
it  should  be  taught,  and  beyond  him  there 
was  no  appeal. 

Instead  of  refuting  natural  science  by  natural 
science,  theology  sought  to  silence  science 
by  citing  Scripture. 

Galileo,  writing  in  1610,  complains  because 
the  theologians  would  not  so  much  as  look 
through  his  telescope,  but  sat  back  and  de 
clared  him  an  "infidel"  and  an  "atheist." 
Q  Two  popes,  Pope  Alexander  the  Seventh 


83 


WHITE     H  > NTHS 

and  Pope  Urban  the  Eighth,  placed  inter 
dicts  upon  Galileo  and  forbade  his  teaching 
that  the  earth  revolved,  under  serious  pen 
alty.  The  works  of  Galileo  and  Copernicus 
were  forbidden  to  all  good  Catholics,  and 
were  upon  the  Index  for  over  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years,  or  until  the  year  1836.  For 
teaching  the  truths  of  natural  science  Bruno 
was  burned  alive,  and  his  ashes  scattered  to 
the  four  winds. 

The  policy  of  every  formal  religion  has 
always  been  to  allow  the  fullest  play  possible 
to  individuality,  and  yet  not  risk  the  life  of 
the  institution.  The  institution  being  the 
important  thing — the  individual,  secondary. 
This  is  the  idea  of  society  in  general,  as 
well  &&*  Individuals,  however,  threaten  at 
times  the  life  of  the  institution  or  system, 
by  an  excess  of  strength,  and  these  power 
ful  individuals  it  has  been  thought  necessary 
to  subdue  and  suppress.  So,  when  one  reads 
history  he  notes  the  fact  that  in  days  gone 
by  nations  have  killed,  banished  or  dis 
graced  their  men  of  genius. 

84 


WHITE    HYACINTH: 

This  has  always  been  done  with  the  avowed 
purpose  of  protecting  the  state  or  the  pre 
vailing  religious  system.  Socrates,  Pericles, 
Jesus,  Anaxagoras,  Aristotle,  Savonarola, 
Copernicus,  Galileo,  Bruno,  Huss,  Wycliff, 
are  the  types  that  society  has  suppressed. 
Q  That  those  who  have  done  the  destroying 
did  not  know  what  they  were  doing  is 
probably  very  true.  In  one  way  they  were 
surely  self-deceived — they  thought  they  were 
working  for  the  good  of  the  state  or  their 
religious  system,  when  what  they  really 
feared  was  the  curtailment  of  their  own 
individual  power.  Men  do  the  things  they 
wish,  and  absolve  their  consciences  at  their 
convenience.  And  forever  do  they  deceive 
themselves  as  to  their  motives. 
Said  Archbishop  Ireland,  "The  enemies  of 
the  Church  have  been  inside  the  Church, 
not  outside  of  it.  The  supreme  blunders  of 
churchmen  have  been  in  suppressing  strong 
men — in  thwarting  individuality  &  All  the 
good  law  and  all  the  good  order  which  the 
state  or  Church  enjoys  to-day  may  be  traced 

85 


W  H  I  T  P  H  S 

back  over  some  route  to  the  words  and 
deeds  of  men,  who  rebelled  against  the  kind 
of  law  and  the  kind  of  order  that  they  found 
administered  by  its  ' constituted  guardians;' 
by  men  who  dared  to  appeal  from  the 
' keepers  of  divine  truth'  to  divine  truth 
itself — from  the  'trustees  of  God'  to  God 
Himself." 

Those  who  manage  religious  systems  have 
small  faith  in  a  Supreme  Being  or  Universal 
Order.  Luther,  left  alone,  would  have  soon 
settled  down  into  a  country  parson,  and  his 
protestantism  would  have  diffused  itself  in 
the  form  of  a  healthful  attenuation.  All  ex 
tremes  tend  to  cure  themselves.  Well  has  it 
been  said  that  Luther  retarded  civilization 
a  thousand  years  &  It  was  the  absurd  and 
foolish  rancor  of  priests  and  popes  that  by 
opposition  lifted  Luther  into  a  world-power, 
and  made  possible  a  thousand  warring, 
jarring,  quibbling  sects  and  systems,  con 
suming  each  other,  and  the  time  and  sub 
stance  of  mankind,  in  their  vacuous  and 
inept  theological  antics. 

86 


Luther  prolonged  the  life  of  theology  by 
presenting  it  in  a  palatable  capsule,  just  at  a 
time  when  the  intelligence  of  the  world 
was  making  wry  faces  getting  ready  to  spew 
it.  Q  Pope  Leo  XIII. ,  the  wisest  man  who 
ever  sat  in  the  papal  chair,  once  wrote, 
"  The  real  enemies  of  the  Church  have  been 
those  o'er  zealous  churchmen  who  have 
sought  to  stamp  out  error  by  violence,  for 
getful  that  man  is  little  and  our  God  is 
great,  and  that  in  His  wisdom  the  Father 
of  all  has  provided  that  evil  left  alone  shall 
soon  exhaust  itself,  and  right,  of  itself,  will 
surely  prevail  &  Impatient  defense  of  our 
holy  religion  springs  from  limitation  and 
lack  of  faith.  Against  its  avowed  enemies 
the  Church  stands  secure,  but  against  those 
who  are  quick  to  draw  the  sword  and  strike 
off  the  ear  of  Malchus,  we  are  often  power 
less.  If  the  servants  of  the  Church  had  ever 
taught  by  example,  through  love  and  pa 
tience,  even  now  the  reign  of  our  God 
would  be  universal,  as  the  flowers  of  spring 
carpet  the  gentle  hillside  slopes." 

87 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

These  gentle  words  of  Pope  Leo  lose  none 
of  their  quality,  even  when  the  obvious  fact 
is  pointed  out  that  the  man  who  struck  off 
the  ear  of  the  high-priest's  servant,  was  the 
very  man  who  founded  the  Church. 
The  reason  there  are  now  so  few  professors 
to  teach  theology,  is  on  account  of  the 
scarcity  of  scholars  who  will  pay  for  being 
taught.  The  demand  always  keeps  pace  with 
the  supply  where  salaries  and  honors  are 
involved.  If  there  were  a  vast  number  of 
people  who  wanted  to  be  taught  alchemy, 
astrology  and  palmistry,  there  would  not  be 
wanting  teachers  to  teach  these  things. 
When  augury  was  in  vogue  and  men  fore 
told  the  future  by  the  flight  of  birds,  in  all 
first-class  colleges  there  were  endowed  chairs 
held  down  by  High-Test,  Non-Explosive 
great  men  learned  in  the  noble  science  of 
augury  &  & 

If  there  were  now  emoluments  and  honors 
for  teaching  alchemy,  astrology,  palmistry 
and  augury,  there  would  be  pedagogic  pre 
paratory  schools  for  all  of  these  things, 

88 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

richly  endowed  by  good  men  who  did  not 
understand  them,  but  assumed  that  other 
people  did. 

The  science  of  theology  is  the  science  of 
episcopopagy.  It  starts  with  an  assumption 
and  ends  in  a  fog  &  Nobody  ever  under 
stood  it,  but  vast  numbers  have  pretended 
to,  because  they  thought  others  did.  Very 
slowly  we  have  grown  honest,  and  now  the 
wise  man  and  the  good  man  accepts  the 
doctrine  of  the  unknowable. 
Gradually  the  consensus  of  intelligence  has 
pushed  theology  off  into  the  dust-bin  of 
oblivion,  with  alchemy  and  astrology. 
Theology  is  not  meant  to  be  understood — 
it  is  to  be  believed.  A  theologian  is  an  ink- 
fish  you  can  never  catch.  And  in  stating 
this  fact  I  fully  appreciate  that  I  am  laying 
myself  open  to  the  charge  of  being  a  theo 
logian  myself. 

When  a  prominent  member  of  congress, 
of  slightly  convivial  turn,  went  to  sleep  on 
the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  suddenly  awakening,  convulsed  the 

89 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

assemblage  by  loudly  demanding,  "  Where 
am  I  at  ?  "  he  propounded  an  inquiry  that 
is  classic  &  With  the  very  first  glimmering 
of  intelligence,  and  as  far  back  as  history 
goes,  man  has  always  asked  that  question 
and  three  others : 
Where  am  I  ? 
Who  am  I  ? 
What  am  I  here  for  ? 
Where  am  I  going  ? 

A  question  implies  an  answer,  and  so, 
coeval  with  the  questioner,  we  find  a  class 
of  volunteers  springing  into  being  whose 
business  it  has  been  to  answer. 
And  as  partial  payment  for  answering  these 
questions,  the  man  who  answered  has  ex 
acted  a  living  from  the  man  who  asked, 
also  titles,  gauds,  jewels  and  obsequies. 
Further  than  this,  the  volunteer  who  ans 
wered  has  declared  himself  exempt  from 
all  useful  labor.  This  volunteer  is  our  theo 
logian  ^  Walt  Whitman  has  said : 
"  I  think  I  could  turn  and  live  with  animals, 
they  are  so  placid  and  self-contained. 

90 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 


I  stand  and  look  at  them  long  and  long 

They  do  not  sweat  and  whine  about  their 

condition. 

They  do  not  lie  awake  in  the  dark  and 

weep  for  their  sins. 

They  do  not  make  me  sick  deciding  their 

duty  to  God. 

Not  one  is  dissatisfied,  not  one  is  demented 

with  the  mania  of  owning  things. 

Not  one  kneels  to  another,  or  to  his  kind 

that  lived  thousands  of  years  ago. 

Not  one  is  respectable  or  unhappy  over  the 

whole  earth." 

But  we  should  note  this  :  Whitman  merely 

wanted  to  live  with  animals,   he  did  not 

desire  to  become  one.  He  was  not  willing 

to  forfeit  knowledge;   and  a  part  of  that 

knowledge  was,  that  man  has  some  things 

yet  to  learn  from  the  brute. 

Much  of  man's  misery  has  come  from  his 

persistent  questioning. 

The  book  of  Genesis  is  certainly  right,  when 

it  tells  us  that  man's  troubles  come  from 

his  desire  to  know.  The  fruit  of  the  tree  of 

91 


WHITE     HYACINTH; 

knowledge  is  bitter,  and  man's  digestive 
apparatus  has  been  ill-conditioned  to  assim 
ilate  it.  But  still  we  are  grateful,  and  good 
men  never  forget  that  it  was  woman  who 
gave  the  fruit  to  man — men  learn  nothing 
alone.  In  the  Garden  of  Eden,  with  every 
thing  supplied,  man  was  an  animal,  but 
when  he  was  turned  out  and  had  to  work, 
strive,  struggle  and  suffer,  he  began  to  grow 
into  something  better. 
The  theologians  of  the  Far  East  have  told 
us  that  man's  deliverance  from  the  evils  of 
life  must  come  through  the  killing  of  de 
sire;  we  reach  Nirvana — rest — through 
nothingness  &  But  within  a  decade  it  has 
been  borne  in  upon  a  vast  number  of  think 
ing  men  of  the  world,  that  deliverance  from 
discontent  and  sorrow  was  to  be  had,  not 
through  ceasing  to  ask  questions,  but  by 
asking  one  more  f&  The  question  is  this, 
"What  can  I  do?" 

And  having  asked  the  question,  we  must 
set  to  work  answering  it  ourselves. 
When  man  went  to  work,  action  removed 

92 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

the  doubt  that  theory  could  not  solve. 
QThe  rushing  winds  purify  the  air;  only 
running  water  is  pure ;  and  the  holy  man, 
if  there  be  such,  is  the  one  who  loses  him 
self  in  persistent,  useful  effort.  The  saint  is 
the  man  who  keeps  his  word  and  is  on  time. 
By  working  for  all,  we  secure  the  best  re 
sults  for  self,  and  when  we  truly  work  for 
self,  we  work  for  all  /*?  The  priestly  class 
evolves  naturally  into  being  everywhere  as 
man  awakens  and  asks  questions.  Only  the 
unknown  is  terrible,  says  Victor  Hugo.  We 
can  cope  with  the  known,  and  at  the  worst 
we  can  overcome  the  unknown  by  accept 
ing  it.  Verestchagin,  the  great  painter,  who 
knew  the  psychology  of  war  as  few  men 
have,  and  went  down  to  his  death  glori 
ously,  as  he  should,  on  a  sinking  battleship, 
once  said,  "In  modern  warfare,  when  man 
does  not  see  his  enemy,  the  poetry  of  battle 
is  gone,  and  man  is  rendered  by  the  un 
known  into  a  quaking  coward." 
Enveloped  in  the  fog  of  ignorance  every 
phenomena  of  nature  causes  man  to  quake 

93 


W  H  1 i  A  C  f  H  S 

and  tremble — he  wants  to  know  ,*?  Fear 
prompts  him  to  ask,  and  greed  for  power, 
place  and  pelf,  replies. 
To  succeed  beyond  the  average,  is  to  realize 
a  weakness  in  humanity  and  then  bank  on 
it.  The  priest  who  pacifies  is  as  natural  as 
the  fear  he  seeks  to  assuage — as  natural  as 
man  himself. 

So  the  first  man  is  in  bondage  to  his  fear,  and 
he  exchanges  this  for  bondage  to  a  priest. 
First,  he  fears  the  unknown;  second,  he 
fears  the  priest  who  has  power  over  the 
unknown. 

Soon  the  priest  becomes  a  slave  to  the  an 
swers  he  has  conjured  forth.  He  grows  to 
believe  what  he  at  first  pretended  to  know. 
The  punishment  of  every  liar  is  that  he 
eventually  believes  his  lies  &  The  mind  of 
man  becomes  tinted  and  subdued  to  what 
he  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand. 
So  we  have  the  formula  : 
Man  in  bondage  to  fear. 
Man  in  bondage  to  a  priest. 
The  priest  in  bondage  to  a  creed. 

94 


W  HITE     HYACINTHS 

Then  the  priest  and  his  institution  becomes 
an  integral  part  and  parcel  of  the  state, 
mixed  in  all  of  its  affairs.  The  success  of 
the  state  seems  to  lie  in  holding  belief  intact 
and  stilling  all  further  questions  of  the 
people,  transferring  all  doubts  to  this  vol 
unteer  class  that  answers  for  a  consideration. 
Q  Naturally  the  man  who  does  not  accept 
the  answers  is  regarded  by  the  priest  as  the 
enemy  of  the  state — that  is,  the  enemy  of 
mankind. 

To  keep  this  questioner  down  has  been  the 
chief  concern  of  every  religion  /*?  And  the 
problem  of  progress  has  been  to  smuggle 
the  newly  discovered  truth  past  Cerberus, 
the  priest,  by  preparing  a  sop  that  was  to 
him  palatable  ,*?  From  every  branch  of 
science,  the  priest  has  been  routed,  save 
sociology  alone.  Here  he  has  stubbornly 
made  his  last  stand,  and  is  saving  himself 
alive  by  slowly  accepting  the  situation  and 
transforming  himself  into  the  promoter  of 
a  social  club. 
The  priest  is  society's  walking  delegate. 

95 


WHIT NT  T  H  S 

He  is  the  self-appointed  business  agent  of 
Divinity — and  no  contract  between  God 
and  man,  man  and  man,  or  man  and 
woman,  is  valid  unless  ratified  by  him.  All 
who  do  not  belong  to  his  union  are  scabs. 
Q  The  evolution  of  the  race  is  mirrored  in 
the  evolution  of  the  individual.  Look  back 
on  your  own  career — your  first  dawn  of 
thought  began  in  an  inquiry,  "Who  made 
all  this — how  did  it  all  happen  ?  " 
And  theology  comes  in  with  a  glib  expla 
nation  :  the  fairies,  dryads,  gnomes  and  gods 
made  everything,  and  they  can  do  with  it 
all  as  they  please.  Later  we  concentrate  all 
of  these  personalities  in  one  god,  with  a 
devil  in  competition,  and  this  for  a  time 
satisfies  &  •& 

Later,  the  thought  of  an  arbitrary  being 
dealing  out  rewards  and  punishments,  grows 
dim,  for  we  see  the  regular  workings  of 
cause  and  effect.  We  begin  to  talk  of  energy, 
the  divine  essence,  and  the  reign  of  law. 
We  speak  as  Matthew  Arnold  did  of  a 
"Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for 

96 


WHITE    HYACINTH; 

righteousness."  But  Emerson  believed  in  a 
Power  that  was  in  himself,  that  made  for 
righteousness. 

Metaphysics  reaches  its  highest  stage  when 
it  affirms,  "All  is  One,"  "All  is  Mind," 
just  as  theology  reaches  its  highest  concep 
tion  when  it  becomes  monotheistic — having 
one  God  and  curtailing  the  personality  of 
the  devil  to  a  mere  abstraction. 
But  this  does  not  long  satisfy,  for  we  begin 
to  ask,  "  What  is  this  One  ?  "  or  "What  is 
Mind?" 

Then  positivity  comes  in  and  says  that  the 
highest  wisdom  lies  in  knowing  that  we  do 
not  know  anything,  and  never  can,  concern 
ing  a  First  Cause.  All  we  find  is  phenom 
ena,  and  behind  phenomena,  phenomena. 
&&b\  The  laws  of  nature  do  not  account  for 
the  origin  of  the  laws  of  nature.  Spencer's 
famous  chapter  on  the  unknowable  defines 
the  limits  of  human  knowledge.  And  it  is 
worth  noting  that  the  one  thing  which  gave 
most  offense  in  Spencer's  work  was  this 
doctrine  of  the  unknowable.  This,  indeed, 

97 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

forms  but  a  small  part  of  the  work  of  this 
great  man,  and  if  it  were  all  demolished 
there  would  still  remain  his  doctrine  of  the 
known. 

The  bitterness  of  theology  toward  science 
arises  from  the  fact  that  as  we  find  things 
out,  we  dispense  with  the  arbitrary  hand 
made  god,  and  his  business  agent,  the  priest. 
Q  Men  begin  by  explaining  everything,  and 
the  explanations  given  are  always  for  other 
people.  Parents  answer  the  child,  not  tell 
ing  him  the  actual  truth,  but  giving  him 
that  which  will  satisfy — that  which  he  can 
mentally  digest.  To  say  "  the  fairies  brought 
it"  may  be  all  right  until  the  child  begins 
to  ask  who  the  fairies  are,  and  wants  to  be 
shown  one,  and  then  we  have  to  make  the 
somewhat  humiliating  confession  that  there 
are  no  fairies. 

But  now  we  perceive  that  this  mild  fabrica 
tion  in  reference  to  Santa  Claus  and  the 
fairies,  is  right  and  proper  mental  food  for 
the  child.  His  mind  cannot  grasp  the  truth 
that  some  things  are  unknowable;  and  he 

98 


W  H  I  T  K     HYACINTH! 

is  not  sufficiently  skilled  in  the  things  of 
the  world  to  become  interested  in  them — he 
must  have  a  resting  place  for  his  thought, 
and  so  the  fairy  tale  comes  in  as  an  aid  to 
the  growing  imagination  ,*?  Only  this — we 
place  no  penalty  in  disbelief  in  fairies,  nor 
do  we  make  offers  of  reward  to  all  who 
believe  that  fairies  actually  exist.  Neither  do 
we  tell  the  child  that  people  who  believe  in 
fairies  are  good,  and  that  those  who  do  not 
are  wicked  and  perverse. 
The  theological  and  metaphysical  stages  are 
necessary,  but  the  sooner  man  can  be  grad 
uated  out  of  them  the  better.  Hate,  fear, 
revenge  and  doubt  are  all  theological  attri 
butes,  detrimental  to  man's  best  efforts  &&:> 
Moral  ideas  were  an  afterthought,  and 
really  form  no  part  of  theology.  All  beauti 
ful  altruistic  impulses  thrive  better  when 
separated  from  theology. 
And  the  sum  of  the  argument  is,  that  all 
progress  in  mind,  body  and  material  things 
has  come  to  man  through  the  study  of 
cause  and  effect.  And  just  in  degree  as  he 

99 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

abandoned  the  study  of  theology  as  futile 
and  absurd,  and  centered  on  helping  him 
self  here  and  now,  has  he  prospered. 
Man's  only  enemy  is  himself,  and  this  is 
on  account  of  his  ignorance  of  this  world, 
and  his  superstitious  belief  in  another  &&?> 
Our  troubles,  like  diseases,  all  come  from 
ignorance  and  weakness,  and  through  our 
ignorance  are  we  weak  and  unable  to  adjust 
ourselves  to  better  conditions.  The  more 
we  know  of  this  world  the  better  we  think 
of  it,  and  the  better  we  are  able  to  use  it 
for  our  advancement. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge,  the  unknown  cause 
that  rules  the  world  by  unchanging  laws  is 
a  movement  forward  toward  happiness, 
growth,  justice,  peace  and  right.  Therefore, 
the  scientist,  who  perceives  that  all  is  good 
when  rightly  received  and  rightly  under 
stood,  is  really  the  priest  and  holy  man — 
the  mediator  and  explainer  of  the  myster 
ious.  As  fast  as  we  understand  things  they 
cease  to  be  supernatural.  The  supernatural 
is  the  natural  not  yet  understood.  The  theo- 

100 


WHITE     HYACINTH! 

logical  priest  who  believes  in  a  God  and  a 
Devil  is  the  real  modern  infidel. 
The  man  of  faith  is  the  one  who  discards 
all  thought  of  "how  it  first  happened," 
and  fixes  his  mind  on  the  fact  that  he  is 
here.  The  more  he  studies  the  conditions 
that  surround  him,  the  greater  his  faith  in 
the  truth  that  all  is  well. 
If  men  had  turned  their  attention  to  hu 
manity,  discarding  theology,  using  as  much 
talent,  time,  money  and  effort  in  solving 
social  problems,  as  they  have  in  trying  to 
wring  from  the  skies  the  secrets  of  the  un 
knowable,  this  world  would  now  be  a  veri 
table  paradise.  It  is  theology  that  has  barred 
the  entrance  to  Eden,  by  diverting  the  at 
tention  of  men  from  this  world  to  another. 
C£  All  religious  denominations  now  dimly 
perceive  the  trend  of  the  times,  and  are 
gradually  omitting  theology  from  their 
teachings  and  taking  on  ethics  and  sociology 
instead.  We  are  evolving  theology  out  and 
sociology  in.  Theology  has  ever  been  the 

foe  of  progress  and  the  enemy  of  knowl- 

101 


edge.  It  has  professed  to  know  all,  having 
a  revelation  direct  from  the  Creator  Him 
self,  and  has  placed  a  penalty  on  all  investi 
gation  and  advancement. 
The    age   of  enlightenment    will   not  be 
here  until  every  church  has  evolved  into 
a    schoolhouse,    and    every    preacher 
is    both   a   teacher  and  a    pupil. 


102 


NATURE  Is  ON  THE  SIDE  OF  THOSE 
WHO    PUT   THEIR    TRUST    IN    HER 


VACATIONS 

HERE  are  three  good 
reasons  why  all  employes 
should  have  vacations.  One 
is  so  the  employer  can  see 
how  easily  anybody  and 
everybody's  place  can  be 
filled.  The  next  is  so  the 
employe  can  see,  when  he  returns,  how 
well  he  can  be  spared,  since  things  go  right 
along  without  him.  The  third  is  so  the 
employe  can  show  the  employer,  and  the 
employer  can  understand  that  the  employe 
is  not  manipulating  the  accounts  or  engi 
neering  deals  for  his  own  benefit.  Many  a 
defalcation  could  have  been  avoided  had 
the  trusted  man  been  sent  away  for  a  few 
weeks  every  year,  and  an  outsider  put  in 
his  place.  Beyond  these,  the  vacation  has 
little  excuse. 

As  a  matter  of   recuperation  the  vacation 
does  not  recuperate,  since  as  a  rule,  no  man 

103 


WHITE     HYACINTHS 

needs  a  vacation  so  much  as  the  person  who 
has  just  had  one. 

The  man  who  is  so  run  down  that  he  needs 
a  vacation  can  never  adjust  or  reform  him 
self  in  two  weeks.  What  he  really  needs  is 
to  reform  his  life. 

To  work  during  the  year  at  so  rapid  a  pace 
that  in  August  one's  vitality  is  exhausted, 
and  a  rest  demanded  is  rank  folly  ^  What 
we  all  need  is  enough  vacation  every  day  so 
that  we  can  face  each  morning  with  health 
sufficient  to  do  our  work  in  gladness.  That 
is  to  say,  we  need  enough  of  a  play-spell 
every  day  to  keep  us  in  good  physical  con 
dition.  The  man  who  is  done  up  and  fagged 
out  has  not  found  his  work.  And  the  man 
who  lives  during  the  year  in  anticipation  of 
a  vacation  does  not  deserve  one,  for  he  has 
not  ascertained  that  it  is  work,  and  not 
vacations,  that  makes  life  endurable. 
There  be  good  people  who  travel  by  the 
gorge  route  so  incessantly  that  their  livers 
finally  go  on  a  strike,  palates  finally  declare 
a  lock-out,  and  then  they  laud  Bernarr 

104 


W  H  I  T  E     HYACINTH! 

Mac  Fadden,  and  proclaim  fasting  a  virtue. 
All  this  until  reasonable  health  returns, 
when  they  again  buy  commutation  tickets 
via  the  whirlpool  and  play  hockey  with 
their  in'ards.  If  you  hustle  so  continually 
that  your  system  demands  a  vacation,  you 
have  gotten  where  you  cannot  do  good 
work. 

If  you  have  reached  a  point  where  you  can 
not  do  good  work,  you  can  not  enjoy  your 
vacation.  If  you  absolutely  need  a  vacation 
you  are  not  in  the  mood  to  enjoy  it,  because 
it  is  thrust  upon  you  by  necessity,  willy- 
nilly.  Things  forced  upon  us  are  never 
pleasant.  The  only  man  who  can  really  en 
joy  an  outing  is  the  man  who  does  not  need 
it.  And  the  man  who  keeps  his  system  so 
strong  and  well  balanced  that  he  does  not 
need  a  vacation  is  the  one  who  will  event 
ually  marry  the  proprietor's  daughter  and 
have  his  name  on  the  sign  jfi  Before  you 
manage  a  business,  you  would  better  learn 
how  to  manage  your  cosmos. 
I  know  because  I  take  vacations  myself. 

105 


NOTHING    FAILS    LIKE   SUCCESS 


IN  RE  SUCCESS 


S  a  rule,  the  man  who  can 
do  all  things  equally  well 
is  a  very  mediocre  individ 
ual.  Those  who  stand  out 
before  a  groping  world  as 
beacon-lights  were  men  of 
great  faults  and  unequal 
performances.  It  is  quite  needless  to  add 
that  they  do  not  live  on  account  of  their 
faults  or  imperfections,  but  in  spite  of  them. 
CJ  Henry  David  Thoreau's  place  in  the 
common  heart  of  humanity  grows  firmer 
and  more  secure  as  the  seasons  pass ;  and 
his  life  proves  for  us  again  the  paradoxical 
fact,  that  the  only  men  who  really  succeed 
are  those  who  fail. 

Thoreau's  obscurity,  his  poverty,  his  lack 
of  public  recognition  in  life,  either  as  a 
writer  or  lecturer,  his  rejection  as  a  lover, 
his  failure  in  business,  and  his  early  death, 
form  a  combination  of  calamities  that  make 
him  as  immortal  as  a  martyr  &  Especially 

106 


WHITE  N  T  H  S 

does  an  early  death  sanctify  all  and  make 
the  record  complete,  but  the  death  of  a 
naturalist  while  right  at  the  height  of  his 
ability  to  see  and  enjoy — death  from  tuber 
culosis  of  a  man  who  lived  most  of  the  time 
in  open  air — these  things  array  us  on  the 
side  of  the  man  'gainst  unkind  fate,  and 
cement  our  sympathy  and  love. 
Nature's  care  forever  is  for  the  species,  and 
the  individual  is  sacrificed  without  ruth  that 
the  race  may  live  and  progress.  This  dumb 
indifference  of  nature  to  the  individual — 
this  apparent  contempt  for  the  man — seems 
to  prove  that  the  individual  is  only  a  phe 
nomenon.  Man  is  merely  a  manifestation, 
a  symptom,  a  symbol,  and  his  quick  passing 
proves  that  he  isn't  the  thing.  Nature  does 
not  care  for  him — she  produces  a  million 
beings  in  order  to  get  one  who  has  thoughts 
— all  are  swept  into  the  dustpan  of  oblivion 
but  the  one  who  thinks;  he  alone  lives, 
embalmed  in  the  memories  of  generations 
unborn.  Q  The  Thoreau  race  is  dead.  In 
Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery  at  Concord  there 

107 


WHITE     H  Y  A  C  I  N  T  H  S 

is  a  monument  marking  a  row  of  mounds 
where  a  half-dozen  Thoreaus  rest  ^  The 
inscriptions  are  all  of  one  size,  but  the 
name  of  one  Thoreau  alone  lives,  and  he 
lives  because  he  had  thoughts  and  expressed 
them  &  & 

One  of  the  most  insistent  errors  ever  put 
out  was  that  statement  of  Rousseau,  para 
phrased  in  part  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  that 
all  men  are  born  free  and  equal.  No  man 
was  ever  born  free,  and  no  two  are  equal, 
and  would  not  remain  so  an  hour,  even  if 
Jove,  through  caprice,  should  make  them 
so.  If  any  of  the  tribe  of  Thoreau  get  into 
elysium,  it  will  be  by  tagging  close  to  the 
only  man  among  them  who  glorified  his 
Maker  by  using  his  reason.  Nothing  should 
be  claimed  as  truth  that  can  not  be  demon 
strated,  but  as  a  hypothesis  (borrowed  from 
Henry  Thoreau),  I  give  you  this:  Man  is 
only  the  tool  or  vehicle — Mind  alone  is 
immortal  —  Thought  is 
the  thing. 


108 


So  here  then  endeth  WHITE  HYACINTHS, 
being  a  Book  of  the  Heart,  containing 
thoughts  that  have  been  voiced  before,  but 
not  so  well  &  Done  into  print  by  The 
Roycrofters  at  their  Shop  which  is  in  East 
Aurora,  Erie  County,  New  York,  mcmvii 


ELBERT 
HVBBAKD 


VVP 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


Publisher 
The  Roycrofter* 


M  C  M.V  1  1. 


